QUILIETTI Van-Druten connections

Betty Quilietti married Carel Van Druten in Rotterdam, Holland, on 30th October 1946. R

Carel was a merchant seaman and like all hot blooded sailors was out on the town one evening when he stumbled across our very own Betty Quilietti who liked to kick up her heels from time to time at the famous Fairleys in Leith Walk.

Leith Walk and Greenside was a bustling area at that time. Betty had been brought up here with her siblings and cousins all local to the area. Her dad had lived at 9 Greenside Place with his Brattisani step father, aunts and uncles and certainly the four surviving Quilietti children were still living there in 1911 at the time of the census. Before the First World War the families worked in the family shops which were numerous at the time, shops at 5 and 6 Greenside Place and 8 and 11 Union Place. The Quilietti family history is steeped deeply in the area.

From Greenside the families moved to nearby St. James’ which was just next to St. Mary’s Cathedral. Although the area was bang in the centre of the City it was a tight knit community with the Church at the centre of their lives. The next War would take place and the family would still be living close to each other in the crumbling old tenements of the town.

When Carel Van Druten went out on the town that evening his life would change forever. He would return home with a new sweetheart.

But of course back in Holland things were a lot different. His hometown had almost been flattened and completely unrecognisable to those who had been away at war.

The city of Rotterdam had been bombed beyond recognition after the end of the Second World War. The five year German occupation of the city had left it unrecognisable. There had been over 100 bombings of the city and some by allied troops. Many innocent civilians had been killed.

There was no food left in the shops to buy, infact there was no food in the country at all.

The people who were left in the city had no food, electricity or gas.

It was indeed a grim place that Carel Van Druten returned to after his war. Carel often talks about that time and how it was not recognisable as his home. He and Betty were married the following year in 1946 and we must suppose that they both had a great struggle at the start of their married life

Their love has lasted 65 years and we will always dedicate our Quilietti family history to them…….

The Van Druten family has a long lineage and Carel has traced his family away back to just about the time of Jesus I think….well maybe for about seven hundred years.

They now have two sons, four grandchilren and even now great grandchildren, numbering three.