Some time ago, I went for a visit to Borkum, a little island off the coast of Germany. I did all the touristy stuff including a visit of the old whalers’ cemetery where the wives of many whalers are buried (some for over 250 years). More recently plaques have been erected. However, they do not have a lot of information about these women, apart from how many kids they had and which whaler they were married to.
I was thinking about this for a while and when I had the chance to visit Borkum again, I bought some pasties with me. They show a woman who does not have a mouth instead she is holding up a sign reading her name: ‘Renske Feyken’. Who is she?
The plaque at her grave describes her as an ex-wife who could not bear any children. It then tells how many children her ex-husband had with his second wife (who both are not buried at that spot) and how many whales he hunted. One might think that the life of women, who lived on an island while the men went hunting whales off the coast of Greenland for months at a time, would be more interesting. The question remains…Who is Renske Feyken?
