Anne Fokkes van der Meer
Hette has been trading in small livestock, vegetables and potatoes since his early childhood. Later, as a gardener, he grew the crops he traded. In the years leading up to his 35th birthday, he mainly builds a good reputation with his seed potatoes. His wife Anne saw opportunities abroad and acted accordingly.
"You're a potato merchant now, boy." - Anne
One day, Anne arrived nonchalantly from town with a new black suit and a grey bowler hat. "What is this?!", Hette exclaims in astonishment when Anne arrives home. To which Anne says: "You're a potato merchant now, boy. You have to go to Germany. They need your seed potatoes there more than here." In addition to her steadfast belief in him, Anne gives Hette 100 guilders, which she had secretly saved from her grocery shop; the starting capital of what would later grow into a multinational company.
When Hette returns from Germany, he reports that he has been selling considerably well. In the wooden suitcase, which when he left contained a new suit and samples of Dikke Mûizen (a potato variety), now also held a stack of trade agreements. From then onwards, Hette began trading across borders. Anne took care of the bookkeeping as well as the PR.
Woman of PR
Business is booming. The time has come to turn Hette's trading activities into an official trading house. And what better time to do this than on the founder's birthday? It is no coincidence that the Hettema family is celebrating the founding of their trading company on Hette's 35th birthday. Because as a PR woman, Anne knew very well that people would remember the establishment more easily when she would combine it with Hette's birthday.
Anne Fokkes van der Meer, Hette's wife and daughter of a potato trader, has an innate trading spirit. She knows how to attract attention to trade. Anne combines this with a drive for growth and forward thinking. Anne, for instance, is one of the first women not to wear an ear iron. At the time, it was both a symbol of status and a way of connecting with one’s ancestors. Anne does not wear it and instead she prefers to pose with a fashionable hat in her hands. Anne's daughter would later explain that her mother did not find the ear ironappropriate to her status as a modern merchant's wife.
Nowadays, it could be said that Anne felt that the symbol did not fit the brand of Handelshuis Hettema.