Never stop smoking cigars

More Gabrielle Petit memorabilia. I managed to get hold of a cigar band figuring her portrait. The cigar band with her portrait actually exists in 5 different colors: yellow, blue, red, purple and green!



The Petit band is part of series of bands with 12 women's portraits. I found it rather curious to find out who the other women were:

Cleopatra (obvious?)
queen Astrid of Belgium: born in Sweden, she was married to king Leopold III and died in a car accident in 1935. Mother of our present and previous king
George Sand: writer, unhappily in love with Frederic Chopin
Sarah Bernhardt: during the First World War - at the age of 70 - she supported the war effort by playing in patriotic theatre plays and films
queen Victoria: she was one of the first women to go to the French Riviera for holidays
Marie Curie: Maria Salomee Skłodowska-Curie, discoverd polonium and radium
Catharina II of Russia: her full name is Sophie Friederike Auguste von Anhalt-Zerbst, which sounds quite Dutch to me
Edith Cavell another heroine from the First World War
Pearl Buck: the first (American) woman to win the Pulitzer and the Nobel prize for literature
Mme de pompadour: mistress of Louis XV of France

This does make me wonder who makes up this kind of lists and on what criteria? It is rather strange to see Gabrielle Petit listed next to Cleopatra and George Sand. Another remarkable thing is that the people connected to the First World War are kind of over overrepresented in the list (Petit, Cavell, Bernhardt)

The series of cigar bands was issued by 'Principal' (=brand of cigars) in 1987. I always thought Gabrielle Petit was completely forgotten in Belgium until she was rehabilitated in 2005 through the national 'Grootste Belg' election. But I guess she was never forgotten by true cigar lovers. Never stop smoking cigars.

First time

Yesterday, my son and I had a hair cut for the first time. Meaning: he had his hair cut for the first time; and I cut hair for the first time. He's two, I''m thirty. I decided not to be too drastic and I think it worked out quite well.

1927

I finally managed to go to the city archive to look up the official file of our future house. Very exciting!! I was thrilled and happy and found the dossier quite remarkable: next to boring administrative letters and forms, it also held the original ground plans of all the floors (some alterations were made while building), a letter from the 'Comiteit voor stadsschoon' and an etching of the façade. I will get copies of most of the document next week.
The approval of the plans dates from February 1927 (the dossier was submitted right before Christmas 1926, on December 21st). So I assume the house was build in 1927 or 1928. The architect was a Mr. Boon from Leuven (F. Lintstraat 111), his client was a Mr. Malfait, living at the time in the nearby Corbeek-Loo (Chaussée the Tirlemont). I was actually surprised the house dates from the 1920s, since our architect guessed it was from the early forties because of the materials used in the basement (concrete). But I'm happy, the older the better for me!


Before the city council approved the building plans, the 'Comiteit voor Stadsschoon' had to give an advice too. The commission was active in the years after the Great War and saw to the uniformity and stylishness of all new buildings. The advice of the commission was quite remarkable (and very funny). Since the plan indicated a lot of little windows would be used (as you can see on the picture), the commission complained: ' le menuiserie en petits bois de toutes les fenêtres donnent à l'ensemble un aspect un peu prison, qui n'est pas riant du tout' and would therefore not approve the initial plan. I don't know what happened then, but the little windows were realised after all. While planning the renovation, it was only with pain in the heart that we decided that we would have to get rid of the charming 'menuiserie en petits bois' because it would be too pricy to have those restored or replaced. 'les goûts et les couleurs...'.

I also tried to find out what was there before our house was. I don't find any traces of another builing and my hypothesis is that the land was part of a park belonging to a huge house a couple of houses down the street. This house was - as most houses in this street - almost completely destroyed in September 1914. After the war it was rebuild and the park may have been divided into different lots. I have seen some pictures indicating this, but I still want to check this in the document archive. The city archive hold the complete photo collection inventorying the damage done by the German army in 1914. Nearly every house in the city was photographed as evidence and to assure German reparation (money) after the war.

The archive is really fascinating. While there I started looking at the files from our neighbours' houses and thus found out when they were build, rebuild, when their pergola's, kitchens and bathrooms were added. I need to go back there anyway because I also found out they have a rather big collection of film posters from 1932 on. I may find some interesting illustration for my book.

The past three weeks in a nutshell

Nieuwvliet (The Netherlands) - one week
Antwerp (home) - five days
Darmstadt (beautiful Mathildenhohe) (Germany) - one afternoon
Mittelberg (Germany) - two days
Würzburg (Germany) - one afternoon
Fischl am See (Austria, Salzkammergut) - two days
Vienna (Austria of course) - three days
Passau (Germany, I think) - one day
Antwerp