More than three years ago, on October 17, 2021, I published the first blog about Tera. This is the very last one I will write here.
On December 7, 2024, I will hand over the website www.teravbj.nl to the Royal Zeeland Society of Sciences (Koninklijk Zeeuws Genootschap van Wetenschappen KNZW) in Middelburg. I am very happy with their interest. It ensures that the information remains accessible to all interested parties. For the time being, the KNZW will keep the website up and running in its entirety and will eventually link it to their own science portal.
My research on Tera started in 2017 in the Zeeland Archives. I stayed in her own villa de Wael in Domburg, at that time a luxury B&B. Every day we drove to the archive to search through the family archive “van Benthem Jutting” for the possibilities for a biography. It soon became apparent that Tera had left behind a wealth of information in various archives, letters and diaries, lecture notes and articles, wills and household records. It was fairly easy to form a picture of her life. The conversations with people who have known her coloured the occurring image.
In 2020, I had a decent manuscript for a biography on paper. Finding a publisher was difficult, outside of malacology Tera is an unknown Dutch woman and I am an unknown author. That makes it risky for publishers. “Selling” a manuscript is not my biggest hobby either. Moreover, you can say much less in a biography than on a website. Publishing all the letters, all the photos etc. is fun to do and it gives a much more complete picture.
However, the technical creation of a readable and accessible website was quite a challenge. I’m certainly not very technical and although I’m not a completely lost in the digital world, my skills on the computer are limited. Fortunately, my niece Anne Boot wanted to help. Finally, we were able to go live in October 2021.
For the past three years I have enjoyed working worked on the website. In total 77 blogs have been published. The letters, photos and diaries have been made accessible. Tera’s articles can be found. There were a number of guest blogs and many positive reactions. Now the work is finished. I want to thank everyone who contributed to the website. I want to thank everyone who responded. I hope my readers enjoyed it.
Good Bye
Barbara van Benthem Jutting
November 29, 2024