Her quiet presence denies the challenging life Truus has experienced. She admits knowing four different languages: Dutch, Indonesian, English and Japanese.
Truus was born in 1932 in the small town of Lahat, Sumatra. She had an older sister Hanneke and brothers Kees (Jr.) and Bram. Their Dutch family, Kees and Johanna de Voogd and their older children had arrived in this part of the world as Kees, a forestry engineer, worked for the Dutch government, developing the forestry industry in Indonesia.
When Truus was four years old, the family moved to Bali where she and her siblings spent a delightful couple of years. Around 1939, the family moved back to Java where they had a big home, giving the children the opportunity to have pets. Truus and brother Bram had two herons, a rooster, chickens, ducks, a rabbit, and even a native coconut rat. The children roamed freely, always carrying their water bottles in that hot climate. However, in 1942 their lives changed dramatically when the Japanese invaded and occupied Indonesia from 1942 to 1945.
Initially, Truus’s father thought the Japanese would not cause them harm. For awhile, the family was still together, living in a garage and eking out a living. But eventually, all the Dutch people were interned in camps. The family was split with their father in a men’s camp, her two brothers in two different camps, and her mother and the two girls in yet another. Conditions were appalling and all were starving. Truus says she was the same size physically at age 13 as she had been at age 10 when they were first incarcerated.
Of great significance to her mother and the girls was the one postcard their father was allowed to send during their incarceration. He wrote, “Don’t be afraid. God shall help.” To this day, Truus treasures that thought. She feels that it has sustained her.
In 1945, their Japanese captors told them that the war was over and they would be released. However, in order for the Dutch to be kept safe at this stage, the Japanese still kept them in their prisons until secure transport could be arranged. The problem was that many Indonesians wanted their country rid of the Dutch — so they attacked and killed Dutch people indiscriminately.
Finally, military trucks brought drivers and armed guards (British army Sikhs and Gurkhas). This security was essential as they needed protection from the Indonesian extremists who wanted all the Dutch out of their country. The trucks had mattresses on the roof as protection. A convoy took them through burning villages to a harbour, where they boarded what was called an American victory ship.
On this ship with many others, it took three weeks to reach their home port of Utrecht in Holland. En route, the ship stopped in Egypt where the folk from the tropical climate of Indonesia could be outfitted with warmer clothing (provided by the Red Cross), which they would need in the Netherlands.
Fortunately, once they arrived in Holland, their father Kees’ sister (who lived in a village near The Hague) took them into her family home.
Once in Holland, the children were able to restart their schooling after the three year lapse. For Truus it meant jumping quickly from elementary school in Indonesia to high school in Holland! Initially she was known as a child who never smiled. She was placed in a high school designated specifically for those children repatriated from the colonies. She was a quick learner and caught up to her peer group, graduating at age 17 with a B designation (which in Holland meant a mathematics focus).
Truus, however, chose to take a three year physiotherapy training program. Soon after this training, she met and married Peter Scott, a Canadian electrical engineer from BC. They moved to London for about 2 years and it was here their first child, Colin, was born.
By 1960 they moved to BC, settling in Vancouver where their daughters Johanna and Carolin were born. Truus embarked on a creative journey making large tapestries for commercial buildings. These were made from sisal and ranged in size from five to twenty-five feet in length. The name Truus Scott became well known in the local creative sphere.
With a young family, Truus decided that the children needed some religious education. In the Netherlands, she was familiar with a Free Thinking church and she knew something of Unitarians through them. Truus decided to join what she thought was a similiar church, but it was actually the United Church of Canada. Their philosophy didn’t quite fit her own theological thinking. Nevertheless, she became a Sunday school teacher and basically became the ‘arts and crafts’ teacher in that community.
After 20 years, her marriage with Peter was failing and Truus needed to find employment to support herself and her family. Her first job as a bank clerk in a TD branch in Pacific Centre was brief and not to her liking. She then applied for the position of Recreation Director at South Granville Park Lodge. In this role, she became well loved and appreciated. She stayed with them for the next 8 years before retiring to be with Carolin and her new baby Els.
We know her as Truus Clark. How did that happen? It was actually 40+ years ago that she met David whose good friends, Keith and Marion Goddard, persuaded six couples to take up bike touring. The group included other Unitarians such as Dennis Wheatley and George Cross. Cycling was to become a significant part of their life together as they’ve travelled through France, Spain and around North America on bike trips.
Truus and David’s marriage was unique in that they didn’t want a church wedding but needed a legitimate chaplain. David knew Barry Cook who was an ordained minister and worked for Human Resources for the United Church in Toronto. He was in Vancouver on his way to a Saltspring Ministry; Barry was happy to perform the ceremony in David and Truus’s back yard.
One of their wedding guests that day was Keith Goddard, who at that time was to become Board President of the North Shore Unitarian Church. Keith remains their close friend, and they occasionally persuade him to come to our services.
David Clark is actually one of the founding members of our North Shore Unitarian community. Truus and David were part of the choir for a short two years. Because of their ties with us, they make it a practice to drive to our services from their Vancouver home.
Watch for a Mini Bio about David Clark, coming soon!