Francina Cornelia Eevers

Additional information

Daughter of Henricus Cornelis Eevers and Jacoba Rooijakkers.

The fatal accident occurred at the farm belonging to the Aart van Kampen family at what was then Peelstraat 2; this street ran from the Kulert to the Derp (through what is now Koolhof). English soldiers were billeted in the barn section of the farm; they were carrying out maintenance on several machine guns (presumably Bren LMGs – Light Machine Guns, or ‘Brenguns’) lined up in a row on the opposite side of the farm. Strangely enough, these machine guns were not aimed at the field but towards the barn, where Francina Cornelia Eevers was sitting on one of the concrete blocks – which served as doorstops on either side of the gate – watching the British soldiers. Whilst one of the machine guns was being cleaned, a shot was fired, fatally wounding Francina Cornelia Eevers in the abdomen. Two sisters tried to fetch help, but it was too late; as Francien’s heavily pregnant mother came running up, she cried out, “Mum, I’m dying” … Harrie Eevers, Francien’s brother, still remembers the incident clearly. The ‘perpetrator’ came to look when Francien was lying in state in the farmhouse: ‘I can still see him standing there in handcuffs, together with two senior officers’. According to Harrie, the soldier was forced to come and see what he had done. A few weeks later, her mother gave birth to a daughter, upon which she said, “We have a new little Francien”; the child was therefore named after Francien.

The above could have been prevented if the soldier had followed the correct procedure before cleaning the weapon, so that the cartridge had been removed from the chamber.

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