Early trauma defined goals

CARNEIRO

Marjorie Carneiro, 55, is one of the driving forces behind economic development in Anderson.

Although she has been in town just two years come October, she is already making her mark as a Vice President of Premier West Bank's branch manager.

Her husband of 24 years, Jeff, is self-employed and operates All Green Carpet Care.

One of the reasons Carneiro is driven stems from a powerful experience when she was 2.

"My parents were Dutch citizens working for a private company from The Netherlands while living in Indonesia," said Mrs. Carneiro.

"My father, Rudy, was employed as a chemist on a sugar cane plantation. My grandfather was operating a coffee plantation.

Following three-and-a-half centuries of Dutch colonial rule, Indonesia began a nationalistic movement that sought independence following World War II.

It was during this period, in 1955, that little Marjorie was born to Rudy and Margareta Eweg, the eldest of three girls, two of whom were born in Indonesia.

Two years later, Marjorie, then 2, has only faint memories fueled mainly by her mother's vivid stories.

"My Dad was in the hospital having his appendix removed when some armed nationalist soldiers came onto our plantation, then into our house and pointed their rifles at my head and the heads of my mother and younger sister Gina, who was maybe six months old at the time," Carneiro said.

The soldiers were part of an armed faction that was ordering the remaining Dutch citizens, primarily women and children, to board ocean vessels waiting in port to evacuate them.

"Almost as soon as we were herded onto the ship, my Mom heard a rumor that my father had been murdered in the hospital. She had no way to check on the rumor, so we made our way back to The Netherlands where my mother's family was waiting for us," she recalls.

Once back in The Netherlands, what was left of the Eweg family settled into a cramped apartment in Rijswijk, a suburb of the nation's capital city, Den Haag (The Hague).

Convinced that Rudy Eweg was indeed dead, company officials three times offered compensation. Each time, Marjorie said, her mother turned down the offer.

After eight months, and just one week before the company's final offer was to expire, who was standing in the apartment's doorway but Rudy Eweg.

"Are you not with the angels?" Marjorie innocently asked her father once they were re-introduced.