Olga & Johan van de Ven
HAT Founders

Olga van de Ven was born in Haarlem, the Netherlands. She moved to Amsterdam when she was 13, on January 7, 1945. Her parents were members of the Vrijdenkers Beweging (Freethinkers, an early Dutch organization that espoused a philosophy of reason, science and logic).

Johan van de Ven was born in Amsterdam and raised on humanist ideas.

They married on July 3, 1954. In 1965 Olga and Johan moved to Emmen in the east of the Netherlands and became members of Het Humanistisch Verbond (Humanistic Association Netherlands). Olga served as chair for several years. In 1977 they arrived in Canada. After two or three years they started looking for a humanist chapter to join and found there was none. Olga called the Humanist University in Amsterdam and was given a list of contacts in Toronto. One was a gentleman who said he wanted to help start a HAT chapter. They went to a meeting at his house, but it turned out to be more like a book club. Soon after they started regular informal meetings at their home. In the early days, there were 8 to 10 people. In the 1990s an early member helped arrange for a meeting place at OISE.

How did you become a secular humanist?

Olga: I was brought up that way.

Johan: I was born one. I found out by reading that I was a humanist. What they (humanists) wrote is what I was thinking. In that time in the Netherlands (1940s) there was a lot of organizing so we became members. Once we settled in Canada we reached out to others in Toronto.

Olga: In 1997 we got a lifetime membership because we had started it.

So you started HAT in Toronto?

Olga & Johan: Yes, we thought it was fun to meet people.

What does HAT mean to you?

Johan: We are humanists, we follow the Bible except we leave out God.

Olga: We don’t believe God exists. We are happy we started it. We met people who thought like we do and talked to people who live without religion. We achieved tax exempt status. We started offering a course for people to administer services to humanists, such as wedding ceremonies and funerals.

What are your other current interests?

Olga: I embroider copies of paintings.

Johan: I am an amateur musician and still walk an hour a day to keep fit. We don’t go to too many HAT meetings as it is too much to handle at our age.

With thanks to Martin Van de Ven for conducting the interview and Olga and Johan for sharing their experiences.