Santa Helena – Rais.cw

The first television broadcast ever on Curaçao took place from landhuis Santa Helena. Jeannette van Ditzhuijzen writes that this broadcast came about in 1952 thanks to Bos Verschuur, the later director of the Landsradiodienst (National Radio Service) on Curaçao. Verschuur lived from 1931 to 1953 in (half of) landhuis Sainte Hélène.

Sainte Hélène

The estate Sainte Hélène on Curaçao may be named after Flavia Helena (Augusta), better known as Helena of Constantinople or Saint Helena. According to Wikipedia she was the mother of the Roman emperor Constantine the Great. The discovery of various relics important to Christianity is attributed to Saint Helena. Thus, about 300 years after Christ, she found the Holy Cross on which Jesus died, in Jerusalem. She is venerated as a saint in Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic Christianity.

Names of saints for former plantations on Curaçao, such as Santa Barbara, Sint Joris, Santa Catharina, San Juan, San Sebastiaan etc., were given by the Spaniards, and Santa Helena, whose name day falls on 18 August, probably belongs among them.

Napoleon

Saint Helena is also the name of a small, remote volcanic island of 122 square kilometres in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, some 2,000 kilometres west of Angola. It is where Napoleon was exiled by the Allies after his defeat at Waterloo in 1815. The island was chosen for its remote location, and so that he could never escape again and cause more evil in the world he was moreover guarded by 2,100 soldiers and a fleet of 10 ships!

Napoleon spent the last 6 years of his life here, before he died on 5 May 1821 and was buried on the island. His remains were transferred to France in 1840.

Santa Helena, Curaçao

Santa Helena, the neighbourhood on Curaçao, borders Habaai in the east, Zjaro in the south, Wishi in the north and Seru Pretu in the west.

The bario has belonged to Habaai from old, came into being around 1800 and was first called Bijgelegen (1882), later Sandrok and then officially Sainte Hélène (1922). A striking monument is the landhuis Sainte Hélène at Weg naar Welgelegen no. 59, known in popular speech as Landhuis Santa Helena. In a poem it was also described as "the pleasure garden Sint Hélène, opposite Welgelegen". The little landhuis had a romantic appearance, with carved woodwork — "gingerbread" — applied around the veranda and the triangle above the entrance. The name of the estate was also executed in stained glass above the entrance.

Shon Foochi

The owner of the landhuis was Henriette Dorothea van Uytrecht. After her death in 1908 the house passed to her daughter. She bore the same name as her mother but was known in everyday speech as Shon Foochi, and was married to Petrus Pietersz, alias Shon Pé. The couple lived in the Frederikstraat in Otrobanda but spent the weekends at the country house Santa Helena. During the renovation and extension of the house in the city the couple lived at Santa Helena for a while.

Splitting of the landhuis

Around 1931 the house, including the patio at the back, was split in two and rented to two families. On the left side of the house, where a fruit hofje also stood, the Van der Jagt family came to live; on the right side lived the Bos Verschuur family, who was later appointed director of the national radio service. In 1952 he realised the first television broadcast on Curaçao from his living room.

Around 1980 the landhuis formed part of an inheritance and was bought from the estate by Philip Pietersz.

Santa Helena developed, like many neighbourhoods around the Schottegat, mainly after the establishment of the oil refinery in 1917. To live closer to the refinery, small dwellings arose in Santa Helena, especially of families from Bándabou.

Villa Maria

A beloved figure in the neighbourhood was Marie Jozephus Hugenholtz, a surgeon from Rheden, the Netherlands, better known as "Shon dòkter" or "Dòkter grandi". For years he was one of the few surgeons on Curaçao and lived in the monumental building Villa Maria, which was destroyed by a fierce fire. Villa Maria stood on the still large bare spot, diagonally opposite Panaderia Isa, on the Weg naar Welgelegen. There was also a large garden there with various fruit trees, a large maize field and several public wells.

Hugenholtz was a gastronome, philosopher, sports fanatic and pianist, owned an extensive collection of music records and in his free time gave lessons in boxing, athletics and weightlifting to young people from the neighbourhood. He also had a garage at home where residents could have their cars repaired free of charge, and a library that neighbourhood residents were allowed to use. Alzheimer's patients were also housed at Villa Maria; when the fire broke out they were placed in the sanatorium and later found accommodation at the institution that now bears his name. Hugenholtz also has a photo book to his name, titled Curaçao.

Circus

The first circus ever to visit Curaçao stood on this terrain of the former Villa Maria, but Santa Helena was also known for local, popular circus events organised by Benjamin Wefer, better known as the athlete and comedian Shon Bènchi. There were also performances by musical groups, and the events were visited by people from far and wide.

The cemetery of Bijgelegen

At the eastern foot of Seru Pretu, near Santa Helena, lay a fairly large cemetery, which unfortunately disappeared because of its location on the slope and rainfall. According to residents of nearby Zjaro, the little cemetery holds sisters (nuns) who did not want to be buried in the usual burial grounds for clergy, but rather there, where they had worked all their lives. In recent years three old cylinder graves still lay there: one of a priest and two of the sisters Sabelita and Simeon. Of these three graves only the last two remain, both with the (mirror-image) letters SBI and a geometric symbol whose meaning is unknown.

The graves probably date from the 18th century and are certainly older than 1820, when it became compulsory to bury the deceased in the official cemeteries and burial in private cemeteries was permitted only by exception.