Ordinary woman had heroic life

The obituary that ran in last Friday's newspaper was exactly 87 words long. It summarily described the passing of Salt Lake resident Angelina Barten Rook, who died on Sept. 13, 2006, 17 days before her 90th birthday, leaving a progeny of seven children, 22 grandchildren, 44 great-grandchildren and one great-great-grandson.

That wasn't enough for another, much younger, Salt Lake resident, Dana Conway, who dashed off the following e-mail to me:

"Many people knew her as a neighbor, mother and friend, but I wonder how many people knew that a hero was living among them? I feel it would be a tragedy to let Angelina's death pass without telling about her heroic life — can you help?

Gladly.

I contacted Angelina's family, specifically her daughter, Ruby Thomas, and asked if it would be all right if I wrote about their mother. Ruby responded with an enthusiastic and unqualified "of course." The reason the family kept the obituary short and sweet, she explained, was because "we are very private," but that didn't mean they didn't revere the woman who helped make them that way. Nor did it diminish their collective, if reserved, pride in the life she led.

"She showed us strength," said Ruby in describing her mother. "Just by looking at her you wouldn't think she was so tough. She was small, only 5-foot-2. But once she set her mind to anything, boy, she'd get it done."

In 1940, she set her mind to defying the Germans.

Angelina was 23 years old and married to Johannes Huvers when Adolf Hitler's Third Reich moved in and occupied their homeland, the Netherlands, in 1940.

Angelina and Johannes were living in Germany at the time, near the Swiss border, and they quickly drafted themselves into the underground resistance movement, helping smuggle French prisoners of war across the border.

Later they returned home to Rotterdam, where their resistance continued. They turned the dirt basement under their house into a hiding place for men ordered to Germany to aid the war effort as laborers.

The first group of seven men hidden under the house — they were called "onderduikers" or "under-divers" — included Angelina's husband.

Angelina would silently deliver food and other necessities to the men. To signal the approach of German troops, she would push a button that turned on a light in the basement.

Then one day she went out to gather food.

When she returned the house was a shambles and the men were gone — including her husband. The Germans had been tipped that there might be onderduikers there. The Huvers' 2-year-old daughter, who was being cared for next door, innocently took the Nazis to the closet that led to the basement.

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