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This is said to be one of the first pictures of a member of the Denissen family, the grandmother of Petrus Denissen At the moment we have to start the Denissen Story somewhere in the middle. It is said, that the parents of a guy named PETRUS DENISSEN came around 1840 from the belgium town of Hasselt and settled in or near the dutch city of Bergen op Zoom.  They used to be millers and had a real dutch type of mill. At the right is Matthias Denissen at the age of 10,  left his 5 years younger brother Bernardus Denissen PETRUS DENISSEN was born on the 1st of July 1877. He moved to the city of TILBURG, a rather wild small town, that became his vivid smell from the thousands of sheep on the moors around it, the wool factories and not least from the cavalery of the Dutch Prince Willem II, who had lost the so called "10-days-campaign" with the result, that Belgium came in excistance. In Tilburg PETRUS DENISSEN did a lot of things. He had a small electric mill, he sold cerials of any kind, he did all kind of "trucking" (at that time of course with horses and horse-boxes), he was one of the first in the city to "taxi" (of course also with horse and coach). He married a young girl, Wilhelmina Hardy, whose parents also came from Hasselt in Belgium. They had 2 children, boys.           The PETRUS DENISSEN family in 1936 From left to right: Wilhelmina Janssens (fiancée of Mathias), Bernardus Denissen, Petrus Denissen, Mathias Denissen, Wilhelmina Denissen-Hardy and the fiancée of Bernadus MATHIAS CORNELIS PETRUS DENISSEN, who was usualy called MATHIEU or simply THIEU, was  the first son of Petrus, born on 1st of October 1911. He started working as an office clerk, but shortly before WW II he changed his ideas and became a freemason, which helped him and a lot of jews to overcome WWII. After the war he was appointed to become managing director of the General Post Office. His younger brother BERNARDUS DENISSEN, was the one that took over the business of his father. He married, but had no children and he died in 1974. The last reunion of the Petrus Denissen family in 1954 In 1954 there was a family reunion on the occasion of Petrus' sister  Maria (nun in the middle) 85th birthday. Upper row left is Mathias Denissen. Second row bottom left is Petrus Denissen and next to him his brother. Above him another sister of Petrus. In sommer 1955 Petrus Denissen visited his sister on the occasion of her 86th birthday, together with the family of his son Mathias. In the front row left is 11 year old Fred, in the same row right is his 6 year old brother Joost, on the lap of her mother is 3 year old Marlies, between mum and grandpa is 9 year old Will. Six months later the father of these kids died, just because some docs "forgot" him ... MATHIAS DENISSEN died on a broken appendix on the 6th of March 1956. He left behind 4 children, 3 boys and 1 girl. The boys were named : GODEFRIDUS WILHELMUS PETRUS MARIA, usualy called FRI or FRED, was born on the 31st of December 1943. WILHELMUS PETRUS ANTONIUS MARIA, usualy called WILL, was born on 20th of January 1946. JOSEPHUS, usualy called JOOST, was born on the 23rd of September 1948. Last but not least a girl was born and got the names MARIA ELISABETH, but was usualy called MARLIES  and she was born on the 2nd of January 1952. GODEFRIDUS left Holland in 1963,/ to settle in Germany. He first lived some years in Cologne. Since than, with some short breaks in Kassel and France, he lived in the city of Bremen JOSEPHUS left Holland 1980, travelled a lot around Europe and lives in Poland since 1984.