Cornelia Schmid (1843-1902)
Cornelia Schmid (1843–1902) spent two and a half years accompanying her husband on board the two-masted schooner Poseidon, a cargo ship that sailed to the Baltic, the Mediterranean and the Americas. She married Captain Evert Deddes (1836–1920) in early 1865.
He wrote in his memoirs: “of course now [after marrying], [we] set off together on a voyage. Life on board was very different now; and soon I found I could no longer imagine how I had ever been able to spend my time alone.”
She stayed with him on board even after the birth of their oldest son Henry in January 1866. “How that boy was spoiled! Everyone considered themselves to be his nanny; and it was fine to see the patience the sailors displayed in keeping him amused,” wrote Deddes. It was only after the ship was shipwrecked and the family ended up back in the Netherlands via a circuitous route that Cornelia Schmid decided to remain on terra firma.
Although she would regularly join her husband on his travels later, as Deddes noted wistfully, “it eventually became too difficult with two small children, especially as the size of the family grew.” In 1872, Schmid christened one of the first two ships of the NASM (Holland America Line), the Maas.
