Early Life
Johan Hendrik Weidner Jr. was born in Brussels to Dutch parents. Although his baptismal names were Johan Hendrik, he use to call himself Jean and later in the U.S. John. He was the eldest of four children, and grew up in Switzerland, near the French border at Collonges-sous-Salève - a village in the French department of Haute-Savoie, where his father taught Latin and Greek at the Seventh-day Adventist Church.
Following his education at French public schools, he attended basic courses at the Seventh-day Adventist Seminary in Collonges-sous-Salève. His father Johan Hendrik Weidner Sr. who studied at the University of Geneva, and had been a minister for the Seventh-day Adventists in Brussels and Switzerland, hoped Jean would follow in his footsteps. To his father's regret, he decided to go into business, and in 1935 he established a textile import/export business in Paris, France.
Around this time he went to Geneva to attend sessions of the League of Nations, and saw firsthand how ineffective that body was in preventing the outbreak of war in 1939.
Read more about this topic: Johan Hendrik Weidner
Famous quotes containing the words early life, early and/or life:
“... business training in early life should not be regarded solely as insurance against destitution in the case of an emergency. For from business experience women can gain, too, knowledge of the world and of human beings, which should be of immeasurable value to their marriage careers. Self-discipline, co-operation, adaptability, efficiency, economic management,—if she learns these in her business life she is liable for many less heartbreaks and disappointments in her married life.”
—Hortense Odlum (1892–?)
“I don’t believe one grows older. I think that what happens early on in life is that at a certain age one stands still and stagnates.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)
“There’s a quality of legend about freaks. Like a person in a fairy tale who stops you and demands that you answer a riddle. Most people go through life dreading they’ll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They’ve already passed their test in life. They’re aristocrats.”
—Diane Arbus (1923–1971)