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Overview
This photograph shows Maria Schilt (Rita den Boer) about to board her flight at Schiphol Airport, Amsterdam (she is in the group of passengers and waving to the people whose hands can be seen in the foreground). She flew from the Netherlands to New Zealand in 1952 to meet her fiancé and start her new life. The 9-day plane journey went from Amsterdam to Auckland via Rome, Damascus, Karachi, Calcutta, Singapore, Batavia, Darwin, Conclurry, and Sydney.
Rita den Boer (nee Maria Schilt) came from Schoonhoven in The Netherlands. According to her parents she had to be 21 to leave – they did not want her to go. She ‘came for love’ – a month after arrival she married Pieter den Boer (also from Holland) who was already in New Zealand, working in Wellington and living in Hataitai Workingmen’s Camp (where single men and new migrants could live).
Rita thought it was going to be a travelling holiday, but they had four children and stayed. It was 18 years before she went back to Holland for a visit. She went back every few years after that, but was ‘always happy to come back’ to New Zealand.
She flew with KLM, leaving Amsterdam on 13 November 1952 and arriving in Auckland on 21 November 1952. She wrote notes during the journey which she wrote up into a diary after she arrived. She often told her children how it took 9 days to get here and they stopped each night in various countries as the plane could not fly during the night. Her diary describes the emotions of leaving and arriving, food and drinks, sightseeing outings and impressions, hotels she stayed at, her crew and fellow passengers.
Her diary begins: ‘It all seemed like a dream that morning as we all got ready to leave…. I said goodbye again, and then I was alone to take the big leap…. On the stairs of the plane I turned for the last time to wave and at the same time they took a picture.’
Her diary ends with the excitement and nervousness of arrival in New Zealand and reconnecting with her fiancé: ‘I woke up with the feeling, now it’s going to happen. At last…. The stairs were lowered…. I suddenly saw Piet. I did not know that I was not allowed to go to him. There was a customs service to receive [us] but when I came running, [a] customs man held me… Fifteen minutes after we landed, I was with Piet and we had everything to tell each other.’