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Independent Order of Odd Fellows International visitors
The history, very brief, of the I.O.O.F in Belgium.
From the beginning, now almost one hundred years ago, to the present.
The I.O.O.F was, as al gathered here know very well, founded by Thomas Wildey in the United States. After the success there, the Order began to spread out internationally.
This was mostly the consequence of the return by a number of Odd Fellows to their original motherland. In other words: the country they or their family originally emigrated from to the United States.
So it happened that in 1870 a Dr. Morse returned to Germany and founded in Stuttgart the first German lodge of the I.O.O.F. Shortly after this event took place a lodge was founded in Switzerland, followed in 1877 by the first lodge in the Netherlands. In 1910 the Dutch odd fellow Dirk De Large came to Antwerp, to visit his friend and countryman Jan Hissing. Last one owned and exploited a cafe, named “Concordia”, near the Antwerp wheat market. It is there that Dirk De Large met and spoke six men, all from Antwerp. All six became interested in the I.O.O.F. A while later all six were inaugurated and became members of the Astrea Lodge nr.9 in Utrecht, The Netherlands. On January 7th 1911, the Belgia club was founded, followed on September 2th of that same year by the Belgia lodge nr.1. The original number of 15 brothers soon expanded to 50, but then Belgium and a large part of Europe found itself at war. While the Great War of 1914-1918 was waging, the Belgian members of the I.O.O.F founded “The Committee for Modest Help or The Samaritans”. All members of that committee were Odd fellows. After the war the committee stayed in existence because there was still a lot of misery in Antwerp, partly caused by the aftermath of the war. Money had to be found to help those in need. To collect funds, initiatives were undertaken and fund collect raising started. I will give you just one example of how funds were collected: a gala performance of “les Huguenotes” by Meyerbeer, taking place at the “Royal French Opera”. After some years “The Samaritans” counted 139 members. All were ‘Odd Fellow’.
Because a large group of brothers lived in Brussels, a club, the Fiat Lux Club, was set up over there. A while later, in 1923, the Fiat lux Lodge nr.2 was founded in Brussels. Because there were also a lot of French speaking members living in Antwerp who were aspiring to have their own lodge, a new lodge was founded in Antwerp. This became the Vae Soli lodge nr.3. Out of the then existing lodges sprung in 1933 the Perseverantia Lodge nr.4, who’s members were mostly younger brothers. In that same year the cooperate partnership Wildey bought a house in the Korte leemstraat in Antwerp. Today this house is the seat of the I.O.O.F in Belgium and accommodates the temple of the Belgia Lodge nr.201 and the Aurora Rebekkah Lodge nr.1. In 1935 the ladies committee “Queen Astrid” (with permission of the royal court of Belgium) was founded. Membership was reserved to the spouses of Odd Fellows only.
Then, once more, a war disturbed life in general. The Second World War hit the Belgian Odd Fellow Lodges severely. Many members lost their lives. Mostly they who were deported and perished, disappeared in the concentration and/or extermination camps. Tradition tells us that before the war the Belgian IO.O.F brotherhood numbered many members of Jewish origin and most of them did not survive the war. Furthermore this house was hit and lost when Antwerp was the victim of an air attack. So after the war not much was left of the I.O.O.F in Belgium. Yet in 1947 a new temple was inaugurated. The help of a large number of brothers from many lodges worldwide made this possible. In 1952 the ‘young’ Odd Fellow club Brabo (mixed membership and for members aged 16 to 25) was founded, but this club came to an end in 1962. In 1967 the Vae Soli lodge nr.3 was dissolved and the members joined the ranks of the Belgia lodge. In June 1974 13 Belgian ladies, between them some members of the committee “Queen Astrid” of 1936, went to Eindhoven (The Netherlands) to be inaugurated as full members of the I.O.O.F. A while later these ladies founded the Aurora Rebekkah lodge nr.1, the first, and until today, only Rebekkah Lodge in Belgium.
Text : D.R & G.V.C |
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