VUGT o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2003-03-05 published
Politician, chef, farmer cooked for presidents
He first came to Canada after the Second World War at the invitation
of the Dutch ambassador
By Randy RAY
Special to The Globe and Mail Wednesday, March 5,
2003 - Page R9
Ottawa -- Anton
WYTENBURG was a proficient chef who had little
time to prepare meals for his wife and 10 children because he
was often too busy cooking for others, including presidents and
other dignitaries.
"He was never a chef at home, because he was always working in
a hotel somewhere or at the bakery, " says his son Rudy of Ottawa,
who says his father's specialties were Dutch pastries and cakes.
At one point, Mr.
WYTENBURG was a cook at the venerable Waldorf
Astoria Hotel in New York, where he helped prepare meals for
U.S. presidents Dwight
EISENHOWER and Harry
TRUMAN, and president-to-be
John F. KENNEDY. In 1945, he worked as a chef for General Henry
CRERAR at a Canadian Officers' Club in Holland.
Mr. WYTENBURG, a native of Delft, the Netherlands, died in Ottawa
on January 30. He was 83.
The son of a Dutch tailor, Mr.
WYTENBURG completed Grade 8 in
Delft and landed a job at a bakery. Later, he moved to Scheveningen
to work as a sous chef in an oceanside hotel.
While working there, he learned to speak German, French and English
and, during the Second World War, used his language skills as
part of the Dutch resistance in its fight against the invading
Germans.
Later, while working for Gen.
CRERAR,
Mr.
WYTENBURG was asked
by Dr. Jan
VAN
ROYEN, the Dutch ambassador to Canada, to come
to work for him as a chef at the Dutch embassy in Ottawa.
"Anton gladly accepted the opportunity. The Dutch were and are
forever grateful for the support of the Canadians during the
war, " said Rudy. In 1947, he came to Canada to work at the embassy
in Ottawa.
In 1950, when the Dutch ambassador was transferred to Washington,
Mr. WYTENBURG worked as a chef at the French embassy in Ottawa
before buying a bakery in Ottawa that became the first Dutch
pastry shop in the city. The business, renamed Anton's Select
Pastries, later expanded to include five outlets.
In 1952, he married Catharina
VAN
VUGT, also a native of the
Netherlands, whom he met when she was a nanny for the secretary
to the Dutch ambassador. That year, Dutch Queen Juliana paid
a visit to one of Anton's bakeries.
While running their bakeries, the
WYTENBURGs made many Friends,
including some who farmed outside Ottawa and spoke highly of
life in the country. This led them to buy a small farm west of
Ottawa in 1962 and in 1964 would see the family give up its bakeries
in favour of full-time agriculture on larger Ottawa Valley spreads,
first in Richmond and later in Renfrew, where dairy farming would
become the family's bread and butter.
As a farmer, Mr.
WYTENBURG took a keen interest in agricultural
organizations and committees. "He had a way with people, he could
diffuse tense situations and always find a solution, " says Rudy.
Over the years, Mr.
WYTENBURG's sons took on more of the farming
responsibilities, leaving their father with more time for the
many organizations he worked with, including the Ottawa-Carleton
Safety Council and the Richmond Agricultural Society. In the
late 1970s, Friends and neighbours urged him to consider politics.
In 1978, he won a councillor's seat in the rural ward of Goulbourn
in 1980, he ran for mayor but lost; he tried again in 1982 and
was successful, sitting as Mayor of Goulbourn Township from 1982
through to 1991. He was also on the council of the former Regional
Municipality of Ottawa-Carleton.
Moving a large family around the community and the farm was difficult,
until Mr. WYTENBURG bought a used, fully stretched Cadillac limousine.
"It sure raised a few eyebrows when we were being chauffeured
to the hay fields in a black limo, " recalls Rudy. "It often
made for a bit of fun when the boys would ask an unsuspecting
gal out on a date."
Mr. WYTENBURG left politics and farming in 1991 at age 72. After
retiring, he continued to volunteer his time to help out on committees
and task forces and as a strong supporter of the church. At the
age of 75, he was the oldest participant in a walkathon for a
local charity.
Mr. WYTENBURG leaves 10 children who live in California, Vancouver,
Calgary, Toronto, Renfrew, Ottawa and
in England. Two of them
continue to operate the family's 440-hectare farm near Renfrew.
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