"My father specialized in orchids, but also grew roses, lilacs etc. My two brothers (one older and one younger, went happily on with that. I went to high school in Amsterdam, where you learned many languages ( for 6 years) Dutch, French, English, German, Latin and Greek etc. (That all came in very handy, as you will see later), then I went to University in Wageningen, where I earned a Masters' degree in horticulture. The Latin and Greek came in very handy in remembering names of plants and fungi, etc. A small percentage of the students were girls then and we all decided to make sure not to be distracted much by the male students!

We started in 1941! War was already going on , but by the end of 1942, the Germans started with terrible "rassas" catching a lot of male students all over the country! My husband (fiancé then) went into hiding until the end of the war! Luckily he wasn't caught! In 1945 the war ended and we came back to Waebubger University and we worked hard to earn our degrees. That was in 1949! We got married right away! What a Joy!! We never (as students) lived together. That wasn't done then!

My husband had studied tropical forestry. (Holland used to have colonies: e.g. Indonesia, Dutch East Indies etc. where he was born! There are very large forests there. We decided to go to Canada for that reason. Eventually we bought the house we live in now. We have three daughters and a son living now in Vancouver, Montreal, New York, and London (England).

I was very busy with our children and the garden (vegetables, flowers etc.) I had always liked to sketch and paint (already when I was a small child) I started painting flowers and plants, etc. I eventually became a member of the Edmonton Art Club. That was wonderful. In that time I found wild flowers and mushrooms. Eventually I found more and more mushrooms and painted a lot of them. I collected a lot of books on Fungi. I couldn't always identify (quite often actually) quite a few of them. So then I connected with a mycologists in Ottawa and they wanted me to send them all that I found, dried, with their descriptions and spore prints. A lot are in the Mycological Herbarium (DAOM) in Ottawa! (see my binder 2490!) Then in 1975 I had a small yellow booklet printed for when I took interested people around outside of Edmonton and in the River Valley etc. I gave many courses and eventually "Lone Pine Publishers" came around and invited me to write a book about mushrooms "Mushrooms of Western Canada" etc., illustrating them with the use of my paintings and descriptions. (Also, Mushrooms of North West North America) ( 7th printing in 2003)

I have always attended the Edmonton Art Club exhibitions, but I don't drive anymore, and haven't for years. I am very happy that the Edmonton Art Club people contact me and I look forward to seeing members of the club."

Leni was a member of the Edmonton Art Club from