Simke Kloosterman (1876–1938)

Simke Kloosterman was born in Twijzel, The Netherlands, the only child of a wealthy family. Her parents were Jan Ritskes Kloosterman, a poet and gentleman farmer, and his wife Trijntje Beintema. She grew up among Frisian villages and forests that were sharply divided according to class and economic status. Playing with the poor children of the village was not considered proper for her, so Simke spent her childhood in relative isolation. In 1883, her mother moved with her to Leeuwarden, where she attended an expensive private school, and six years later to Groningen. Simke also took singing and music lessons and completed her education at a boarding school in Wijk bij Duurstede.
She began writing as a child and published her first story in De Hollandsche Lelie, a weekly magazine for young ladies, at age 11 in 1896. She used the pen name Frysk Famke for some stories subsequently published in a weekly Frisian language magazine. She later wrote stories under her own name that were collected in Swanneblommen, a yearbook of language and literature, published in 1910. For several years, she lived in The Hague, where she attended theaters and worked on her writing, and also traveled by train throughout Europe. Between 1914 and 1916, both of her parents died, and Simke came into a large inheritance. She had a brief engagement in 1918, but broke it off. In 1921, she published at her own expense the historical novel De Hoara's fan Hastings (The Hora Family from Hastings), followed in 1926 by It jubeljier (The Jubilee), which featured her ancestor, Bindert Jacobs Kloosterman, a supporter of William of Orange. She published her only collection of poems, De Wylde Fûgel (Wild Bird), many of them inspired by the natural beauty of her native region, in 1932. She also wrote more novels, collections of fairy tales, and a Frisian cookbook, De Fryske Petiele.