Thio-family

This family has a very interesting history.
The father of the family carried the name of Thio Kiong Djin.
A picture of him as a youth is shown below.



He was born in Banjarmasin at the island of Kalimantan (Indonesia). He had 2 brothers and 1 sister.
He had a very tough childhood, but turned out to have interest in (protestant)religion. To be more precise, this was not his only interest because he married a girl called Tan So Lien.

The mother Tan So Lien was born at Kuala Kapuas, also at the island of Kalimantan (Indonesia).
Her father was a merchant and was out for business frequently.Due to the local habit, she took part in the housekeeping duties at home at
an early age. Taking pictures at that time was a rare exception.

This picture of her was taken around 1950.



The already mentioned marriage took place in Kuala Kapuas july 8th 1936



Thio Kiong Djin started as a teacher at the elementary school and lateron started a study for a new profession. As earlier
mentioned abt his interest in religion, he succeeded in his study and became a clergyman. He enjoyed contact with people
and taking care of the parish he was responsible for. According to the memories he visited thecongregation-people, talked with
them about their problems and tried to help them. He really became the center of the protestant-parish.
In this period the picture below was taken.



Due to the church activities, he was short of free time and could not pay a lot of attention to his own family. But the time he was left
with, he paid attention to his children and organised all sorts of activities, one of them was to go jogging very early in the morning.

The clergyman stood at parishes in several locations like Surabaya, Bondowoso, Malang, Ambon, therefore the family moved with
the father to the mentioned placed. After the return from Ambon Thio Kiong Djin took the profession of relegion-teacher at a
secundary school in Surabaya, therefore the family moved back to Surabya.

Thio Kong Djin had a muscial talent and he played violin very well. He even played music with his eldest daughter during services
in the church.

So far the family name was Thio, but during the 1960's the family-name had to change. This was the result of the policial situation in
Indonesia and all the Chinese people were not allowed anymore to carry their Chinese name. Therefore the father searched for a "new"
name and found one in the New Testament (The Acts 1 vers. 1). The name was Theophilus and had something of the Chinese
Thio-name in it. After this registration the family became known as the Theophilus-family but not not every child took this name
as its surname.

In 1970 the father had a brain-attack and became ill. He was taken care of very well but was not able to fulfil his requirements as
a teacher anymore. Then shortly after the first attack there was a second (unfortunately). After a few years there was a third
attack and shortly after this this picture was taken.



After a while the Lukas Theophilus died in august 29th 1975 in Malang.

The mother moved into the house of her daughter Hannie and son-in-law Biauw Koen at Surabaya and was well taken care off.
She stayed there for quite a number of years. Even in her old age she kept a strict time-scheme. Getting out of bed early in the
morning, listen to the BBC, doing her physical-exercises, reading the Bible etc. One could say "She was very disciplined". She also
enjoyed working in the garden and collecting all sorts of fruits like mango, papaya. She was very fond of her grand-children and
assisted in the daily care during the first days of the their lives.

At 1993 she suffered from colon-cancer and had a very long surgery. Although this was a major impact on her health, she
fortunately survived. She was transferredd to her daughters-house and was very well nursed. She had at that time 3 doctors around
(daughter, daughter-in-law and grand-child) to take care of her. She recovered and enjoyed her life again.
Even during these years, she was the friendly center of the Theophilus-family. Whenever some of the family visited Surabaya,
a visit was made to see her.
She was allowed to reach an old age. At december 4th 1999 she died unfortunately.
Please pay attention to the Thio&Tan Family Tree.