Statue Johanna van Buren

I prayed uh, young people of noew:
Hoaldt d'own sproake in honor'n,
Oew dear doon de-j Hollaands könt,
Mar... 't eigne neet verleer'n...

Johanna van Buren died in 1962, but her work is still loved. She is known far beyond Hellendoorn, where she was born on 20 December 1881. She didn't have an easy childhood. Johanna's father died when she was only 1 year old. The fatherless family moved in with the maternal grandfather. After a period of illness, Johanna joined a seamstress in Almelo as an apprentice as a 16-year-old. At the age of 19 she was able to establish herself as a costume seamstress and took on pupils herself. It was a hard life, with long working hours and meagre earnings. Fortunately, her mother took care of the household. When he died in 1919, Johanna was able to work as a telephone operator in the post office.

"An oonzen oalen tower"

Johanna has been writing poems in the local language since she was 16 years old on the occasion of weddings and anniversaries. It was not until 1926 that she published her first poem, "An oonzen oalen toren", in the local Twentsch Volksblad. The regional Twentsch Zondagsblad asked her for regular contributions in the dialect. Soon she wrote a poem for this newspaper every week and reached a large audience. She also continued to write occasional poems. People appreciated her work because they are about the daily things of life. Nature is also often the subject.

Popular without star allures

Johanna was pleased with the appreciation for her poems, but star allures were foreign to her. More than once she expressed herself in a relativistic way about her work. For example, she called her poems "sufferings".
Around 1950 she indicated that it became too much for her to deliver a poem every week. In November 1954 there was a piece in theDagblad van het Oosten that "Miss Johanna van Buren feels unable to get fresh ideas for her poems because of her health condition, which requires her to stay indoors most of the time." She wanted to focus on the "Heldern van vrogger".
In her prose, too, one knows the poetic Johanna, with her touching love for everything that lives, for her native land and its working inhabitants. She continued to publish until 1961. How popular Johanna was was evident at the extensive tributes on the occasion of her 70th and 80th birthdays.

In remembrance

The memory of Johanna van Buren is still honoured. The Oald Heldern de Noaberschop foundation manages her literary legacy and a permanent exhibition about her can be seen in village museum De Valkhof. There is also a prize named after her for the person who makes a special contribution to the regional culture in the east of the Netherlands and the texts of her poems are used by the Salland band Muppetstuff, among others.
Her beautiful statue, unveiled on her 100th birthday, stands in the shadow of her beloved old church tower, which she has sung so many times.

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