A Dutch family has built a Dijken bell tower in the backyard of their North Street home.
Commonly found in the Netherlands, Dijken bell towers typically stand sentinel in cemeteries and are used to commemorate burials.
The Dineen family has always wanted a part of their heritage in their backyard, which is why Annenieke has put her visiting brothers Henk and Wietze to work this week.
Annenieke moved to Orillia from Sint Nicolaasga in 1974 when she was 24.
"I wanted to learn to speak English," she explained. "I immigrated and started nursing school, then I just kind of stayed."
Annenieke hosts family from Friesland (a province in the Netherlands) or visits her home province almost every year. This year, Henk and Wietze made the trip for the first time in decades.
"In Holland all the land is flat," Henk explained.
"Here, the land has many hills and it's very big," Wietze added.
When Henk and Wietze visit, they enjoy visiting cousins and taking in the Canadian culture. As home builders back in the Netherlands, they enjoyed assembling the bell tower with their sister and brother-in-law in Orillia.
"I had no supplies, no tools, and no workshop," explained Annenieke's husband, Gary. "I asked them if they could make us one with their expertise and they worked like beavers."
The family has almost completed the 12-foot-tall structure in just a couple of days and a few visits to the hardware store.
The current bell on the Dineen family tower is only a placeholder as the family searches for a better one.
"It's been very hard to find," Annenieke explained. "We need to find one that is about 10 inches."
Gary finds the bell towers in the Netherlands to be beautiful, which is why he's thrilled to have one of his own.
"They are elegant," he said. "We have everything here but the bell. We might have the only one in Orillia."
The Dineen family will add some more paint and a few accessories before officially calling the project complete.
Dijken bell towers can also be found in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, Gary says.
"It's a northwestern European thing," he said. "There are lots in the Friesland province."
Annenieke says her family had a lot of fun building the bell tower together.
"Henk and Wietze build houses together, but this was different," she said. "It was a little more challenging without the proper equipment, but they did it."
