To is already 103: ‘I’m not going to sit among the old people in the retirement home’

It is pleasantly busy in To’s house. Her daughters and sons, all in their seventies or eighties, are there too. “Things are still going well, as long as things don’t go in the wrong direction,” she says, laughing. The secret? “Don’t do crazy things if it’s easy. Work hard. And enjoy it when I get the chance.”

She is a fit centenarian, who still does her own errands. “I live in the most beautiful spot in Wouw,” she says decisively. “To an old people’s home? Don’t think about it, I’m not going to sit among those old people.”

When the sun shines, she takes a walk outside with the walker. Furthermore, time passes peacefully. Surrounded by photos of the children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, she does a bit of puzzling, looks at Formula 1 and at Johan Derksen: “I like that one, he tells it like it is.”

Next to her armchair is a statue of a dog, which she affectionately calls Max. Named after Max Verstappen, another hero she follows closely. The dog is her support when she needs to get up. A hand on the earthenware cup and she hoists herself up.

To grew up in Moerstraten on a farm, together with four sisters and two brothers. She was the youngest. “It was time to get started, around five o’clock there was a splash of water in my face, shoes on and I went outside to milk the cows,” she says. The family worked long days in the fields. Thinning the seedlings from the carrots, digging up the potatoes and occasionally taking them to the market to sell eggs. A wonderful time, which she looks back on with gratitude.

At the age of 22, she left home and went to live with one of her sisters, where she helped with the housework. There she met Wim Hagens, a handsome man who worked at the bakery and whom she later married.

She ran her own café for years. “I fell into that unexpectedly,” she says. At that time, the equestrian competition was organized in Moerstraten, which attracted a large audience. To and Wim decided to sell ice creams to the spectators along the road.

“And from that time on it started rolling,” she says. “We opened Café De Bakker and I stood behind the bar. Drafting beers, rik evenings, everyone enjoying chowder, cheerfulness as soon as you entered the swinging doors. The men always came from the church for drinks.”

Until her beloved Wim died of lung cancer at the age of 58. To was left behind with her five children. She was forced to say goodbye to the regulars and closed the doors of her beloved pub.

Grief and loss, she has experienced it all. The hardship and hunger during the war. We all take shelter in the basement from the Germans’ bombs. “I was always scared,” she admits. Later she also lost a son. She prefers not to talk about it, it stirs things up too much. “It happened like this,” she says, her gaze wandering around the living room, a tissue crumpled in her hand.

To has always been an independent, sporty lady. Of ‘the bicycle‘ to Zoutelande, on her own, along winding paths, sandwiches on the back. Swimming in the sea, grains of sand between her toes, and then back again, 85 kilometers with the wind in her nose. But her world was bigger than the Dutch coast. She traveled to Morocco, Spain and Egypt. In Rome she even shook hands with the Pope.

Countless medals from walking tours hang in her living room. “When she saw on TV that there was a three-day march in Tokyo, she thought: I want to do that too,” says daughter Maria, 75. “She picked up the phone and registered. She was already in her 80s then. She took the plane to Japan alone, wearing her walking shoes. The trip was sixty kilometers and she even finished it.”

More women than men reach 100. To knows why that is. “We’re a little stronger, aren’t we.”

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