Trijntje Reidinga

Trijntje Johannes Reidinga (7 April 1799 - 18 December 1869) was a Dutch female speed skater.

Reidinga was one of the best speed skaters in her era. On 2 January 1823 she won together with Atse Geerts Atsma van Terzool (born 1785) nicknamed the IJsreus (Ice giant) the first price in a pair competition in Leeuwarden. After this success, bets on her performances were made. Feddrik Tjesses Sterringa, a painter from Gorredijk, challenged Reidinga for a race. Reidinga accepted the challenge, but only if she was picked up with a sledge. And so it happened, with a arrenslee [nl] she came to Gorredijk and competed against Feddrik Sterringa. She won, and received a gift and the 25 gulden that was bet on her. After this victory, Trijntje Reidinga unexpectedly showed up on the Leeuwarder track during a competition kortebaanschaatsen on 18 January, in the presence of the provincial governor.

Trijntje continued to participate in competitions after her marriage in 1825. On 1 February 1829, when she was already the mother of two children, there was a last report of a competition she participated in. She then competed in Harlingen in a couples race together with her older brother Auke (b. ca. 1788).

Legacy

Trijntje Reidinga must have made a big impression. The poet Kees Harkes Landmeter from Gorredijk made a long poem on Reidinga's competition with Sterringa in 1823. And twenty years later, a list of speed skating couples referred to Reidinga in Leeuwarden on 22 February 1855. It included a rhyme with the stanza: Herinnering doet de naam herleven; Van Atse en Trijntje Reidinga; om weer als zij langs het ijs te zweven; snel hem en haar in vlugheid na!.

Reidinga was born in Goengahuizen (Smallingerland), a village near Grouw, in a farm at Sitebuurster Ee which was called De Roeken.She was the third daughter and youngest child in a baptismal family of five. Her parents were farmer Johannes Wigles Reidinga (ca. 1750-1822), and farmer's wife Aukje Aukes de Graaf (ca. 1750-1829). After her father died in 1822, Trijntje stayed on the farm with her mother. When she was 25 years old Reidinga married farmhand Piebe Pieters de Jong (1797-1876) in Grouw on 26 September 1825. She probably never went to school, because she was unable to write when she was married.

The couple was not able to support themselves, because a certificate of incapacity was made up. They settled in Grouw, where Piebe worked as a farmhand. They had five sons and three daughters.of whom one son and one daughter died young. She lost her son Pieter (born 1830) in 1836 and her daughter Reino (born 1841) in 1843. Her eldest daughter Sjoukje Piebes de Jong (1826-1912) was also good in speed skating. She won on 15 January 1848 in Harlingen, in the men's and women's race together with Evert Schaap.

Reidinga died on 18 December 18 1869 in Idaarderadeel, aged 70.