The book begins in 1944 with ten-year-old Joris Verhagen, a boy who has gotten used to the feeling of danger and the realities of war-bombers passing over his house, the distant sound of anti-aircraft fire, and the domination of the Netherlands by the Nazis-but still does not like them after over four years of the conflict. Instead, the viewer looks down over the shoulder of a boy clinging to the wings at night in the rain while a man with a gun and a flashlight approaches the mill below-a close but extremely exciting view. Verhagen works, yet the cover illustration for the book (currently published by Bethlehem Books) does not present the majesty of the Watchman. The title is taken from the name of the big windmill Mr. Her most famous book, The Winged Watchman (1962), about the Verhagens, a Dutch family involved in the resistance during World War II, shares this close view. I’m at home with little things, and they have to be viewed closely.” She hasn’t the wide view of the sailor and the shepherd, and handling large canvases is sometimes difficult. Fallon and explained why her artistic lens was this way: “I think a woman usually sees things fairly close, by washing up dishes, handling food, inspecting children’s faces. When she painted larger scenes, such as a view from a town, she depicted narrow streets, canals, or the view of a church. She was a master of still life and the close portrait. In a 1985 interview for Irish Arts Review, interviewer Brian Fallon observed that her paintings are often done “in fairly close-up perspective, in a strong but even light, and in relatively shallow space, with a fairly sharp focus.” One can observe this common feature by looking at the collection of her paintings available at, the site maintained by her family and friends. In the last-mentioned place, she was honored by having one of her paintings depicted on a postage stamp and by a retrospective of her work at the Royal Hibernian Academy. A native of the Netherlands, who lived for periods of time in the United States and for the last thirty-two years of her life in England, she was also a painter who had shows in the U.S., Canada, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Ireland. Hilda van Stockum (1908-2006) is mostly remembered for her children’s books. The Winged Watchman, by Hilda van Stockum (191 pages, Bethlehem Books, 1997) Who knew a great war story would ultimately be a mother’s tale? The close-up tasks of the women are just as heroic as the tasks of the men who often fought to protect their loved ones. Verhagen gives “The Winged Watchman,” Hilda van Stockum’s novel about a Dutch family during World War II, such power.
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