Deventer...in search of ancestors, but found a gorgeous windmill!

Windmill along the Ijssel River outside Deventer.

We spent one Saturday afternoon hoping and looking for Denkers family names in cemeteries in and around Deventer.  We made a wrong turn and drove right up to this incredibly beautiful windmill.



We were captivated by it!


The windmill is still functioning as a sawmill.  They allowed us to go inside the mill, see how the logs were positioned for cutting, see the blades and the finished cuts in the logs.  We were able to go upstairs where the wooden gears attached to the paddles were exposed and at work.  There were diagrams of logs showing the best cuts to utilize every bit of the wood.

Built in 1863.

Elder Romig is using far more "modern" Dutch than he did on his first mission!  Each place we go offers opportunity to visit with the Dutch people and everywhere we go, our missionary tags are noticed and asked about.  Zuster Romig often hears people say to Elder Romig, "You speak very good Dutch!"

This is a very, very large windmill used as a lumber mill.  We were delighted to see the interior and how the
sawmill worked, gears, blades and all.

Deventer in the distance viewed from on the windmill walk way.

The sides of this windmill are covered with tiny twigs.

Looking down from this height was
 absolutely eerie!

View from the upstairs of the sawmill inside the windmill.

It starts with this large log...

Five blades shown cutting the log.

These slices of log were cut using power from the windmill.

We entered the outdoor market, held on Saturdays and Wednesdays, at the old museum where
beautiful flowers & plants are displayed for sale. Then on to the rest of the market...

...cheese...

...produce, fruits & vegetables...

...and fresh fish!

The Deventer open market was fun to walk through and enjoy watching people.

We discovered that cemeteries in Deventer are usually associated with religious groups.  This particular cemetery was closed to burials in 1918.  We were not able to find the caretaker, so we wandered through the cemetery, uncovering each headstone and reading the names and dates.  It felt like looking for a needle in a haystack.  However, the feeling of looking for a family name and hoping that the next stone might be an ancestor was exhilarating!



Notice how the pathway is overgrown and the row markers are on each side of the path.



We found this beautiful old cemetery, very overgrown, about the size of two football fields.

We found Geertruida Denker...but not OUR Geertruida Denkers and the dates were wrong.