Biography

About Marianne Lek-Gompers

Widow of Joseph van Aalten since 1895.

Marianne Gompers was a daughter of the prompter and diamond worker Mozes Levie Gompers and Sara de Solla, both from Amsterdam. Marianne, also born in Amsterdam on 8 December 1862, was born into a family with in total seven children. They were Rosetta, Rachel, Levie – also known as Louis, Debora, Elisabeth – also names Elise, Isaac and Marianne herself, all born in Amsterdam, but later mostly living in Antwerp.

At the age of 18, Marianne Gompers married on 20 October 1881 in Antwerp the 21-year old Joseph van Aalten, a son of Jacob van Aalten, who was usually named Jacques, and Geertruida Bromet. Jacob was born in Arnhem on 10 December 1859. Joseph van Aalten was a diamond dealer and polisher and lived in Antwerp, among others in the Zomerstraat 52 (neighbourhood 6). The couple Van Aalten-Gompers had four children, namely Jacques, Sara, (both born in Antwerp), Gertrud and Salomon (born respectively in Amsterdam and Nieuwer Amstel).

However, Joseph van Aalten passed away in Antwerp, already on 10 July 1895, just 35 years old and only 9 years later, his widow Marianne Gompers remarried on 14 May 1904 in Antwerp Wolf Salomon Lek, the widower of Vogel Kalman Duinkerk (usually named Fijtje), Wolf was a son of Salomon Lek and Helena Wolf and he was born in Purmerend on 15 August 1827 but lived among others in Islington in London with his family, where he earned his money as a diamond polisher.

Wolf Salomon Lek was previously married, on 23 December 1859 to Fijtje Duinkerk, a daughter of Kalman Abraham Duinkerk and Vrouwtje David van Oesteren, but Fijtje passed on 22 February 1895. They had nine children together, of whom one was born in Belgium, two in London and six were born in Amsterdam. Marianne’s 2nd spouse Wolf Salomon Lek passed away on 21 October 1910 in Amsterdam, aged 81 and he was interred in the Jewish Cemetery in Muiderberg.

After having lived in Antwerp and Brussels, from 20 December 1926 her domicile became 2e Oosterparkstraat 25 II in Amsterdam, where she passed away on 22 November 1941. The notification of her death was done by her youngest son from her first marriage, Salomon van Aalten. Marianne Gompers was interred at the Jewish Cemetery in Diemen.

Sources include the Dossiers of Foreigners of the City of Antwerp, no’s. 46597 and 69798; the City Archive of Amsterdam, archive card of Marianne Gompers; website stenenarchief.nl/grave Wolf Salomon Lek and grave Marianne Gompers.

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