User:Gerry Bruckel/Sandbox

Mary Bruckel-Beiten, born in the former Dutch East Indies on 6 October 1904,East Java in Bondowoso Indonesia. With a pioneering spirit she dared at a young age of 18 years old to participated in a Java Ford company car rally. She also was the first woman passenger to fly in a small airplane from Batavia(Djakarta) to Singapore. Spending her young years with her parents at their sugar and tobacco plantations in East Java, she spend some time teaching. Soon after teaching, she became interested in journalism, and worked for the Soerabaja Commerce Paper. In the 2nd World War. Mary was 4 years in a Japanese concentration camp with her 2 young sons. After the war Mary and her family moved to the Netherlands. She was instrumental in the postcolonial years in the Netherlands to help her people from Dutch Indonesian background to motivate them and to start all over in a new country.She taught the Dutch housewifes the culture of Indonesia and the way to cook Indonesian recepy's even with Dutch ingredients. Holland has now many Indonesian restaurants. She established and founded the first Asian market in the Netherlands called the Pasar Malam in the Hague, Dierentuin the first given on the 3, 4 and 5th July in 1958She continue to organize this yearly market for 8 more years, she also is the founder of the Dutch Indonesian cultural program, she organized these events with her co-workers. In a letter of October 3d 1957, Tjalie Robinson asked Mary to help him with his magazine, and assured her all her rights will be het own. She trusted him and helped him by creating the Tong Tong, she wanted to help Tjalie Robinson and he became the editor of this mutual magazine for the Dutch Indonesian peoples and members of the cultural program.