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Early years (1852 - 1870) Joannes Maria Schuver was born in Amsterdam on 27 February 1852. His father, Joannes Theodorus Antonius Schuver, was a rich coffee and tea merchant, while his mother, Theodora Paulina Monica Roothaan, also came from a prosperous commercial family. Schuver's parents owned several houses in Amsterdam and Haarlem, and the country property known as Berkenrode. [1] Father Schuver sent Joannes, his only child, to a 'French' school, and then to the well-known Willibrord College in Katwijk. While at the latter school, the boy wrote term papers in history, including essays on the Crusades and on the history of Italy. These were the first indication of Schuver's interest in the Mediterranean region and the Levant. [2] While his teachers regarded him as a serious and ambitious student who would go far, they also had to admit that he was a very reserved and opinionated boy. [3] This independent attitude was particularly marked in relation to Catholicism and the Church, from which Schuver was to distance himself in an emphatic manner, in later life. | |
