A life of quiet impact - the story of Grietje Croll-van Randen

Text: Tessa Louwerens

Her niece, also named Grietje, knew her well. “She was like a second mother to me,” she recalls. “She was always supportive - of me, of her family, of people she sometimes barely knew but wanted to help.”

Now, that same spirit of support lives on in the donation that Grietje Croll-van Randen made to the Anne van den Ban Fund, which allows promising students from developing countries to study at Wageningen University & Research, where Grietje herself once made history as a prominent female researcher in the early 1950s, quite unique in those days.

Born in 1929 in the Frisian village of Roordahuizum, Grietje was the fourth child in a poor but intellectually and socially active family of five children. Grietje’s father, a carpenter, built changing huts by the canal for public swimmers, and her mother, deeply engaged in grassroots politics, helped set up and run initiatives like a travelling teetotaler café (the “Blauwe Tent”, also built by Grietje’s father) to combat alcoholism. She also founded a home library during World War II. “That social conscience,” her niece says, “stayed with my aunt her entire life.” 

Unlike her older sister, who played with dolls, young Grietje preferred building forts and playing with the boys. “She was very much a tomboy,” her niece smiles. Grietje never intended to become a mother — but she did become a trailblazer for young people, especially women, providing them with opportunities to further themselves.

Grietje’s mother knew education was the way forward and supported all her children to achieve their dreams. Scholarships enabled Grietje to pursue education - a path that would transform her life. After high school, she planned to study pathology, but things turned out differently. A perceptive teacher urged her to apply for agricultural science instead - a move that would redirect her life’s trajectory at a time when female students made up less than ten percent of the annual intake at the Landbouwhogeschool.  

Grietje completed her Bachelor of Science in agricultural engineering at what would later become Wageningen University. She then worked toward her master's degree, with a minor in home economics. Grietje quickly advanced to a teaching assistantship in chemistry and later to a research position.

As a student, Grietje became a member of the WVSV (Wageningen Vrouwelijke Studenten Vereniging or Wageningen Female Student Organisation) and started what became a lifelong habit: making friends with people from around the world. No doubt Grietje’s mastery of five languages - Dutch, Frisian, English, French and German - greatly facilitated her ability to make international connections. 
During her time in Wageningen, Grietje began travelling - first within Europe, then to Algeria, Egypt, and across Africa. Participating in excursions, attending conferences, and exploring with friends, Grietje soaked up knowledge of different cultures, their art, architecture and lifestyles. 

In 1955, she received a Kellogg Foundation Fellowship to study at Cornell University in the United States. As the first such fellowship awarded in home economics, this was extraordinary for a woman in the 1950s.

Afterwards, Grietje returned to Wageningen, where she became assistant director of NITHO - the Dutch Institute for Applied Home Economics Research (het Nederlands Instituut voor Toegepast Huishoudkundig Onderzoek). She was thought to be instrumental in running this new programme, as well as supervising the construction of the institute’s new building.

But Grietje’s activities were not limited to management. She also conducted applied research on household efficiency, kitchen design, and ergonomics - pragmatic science with tangible impact. She attended numerous international conferences. At least twice, she chaired the month-long International Course on Rural Extension in Wageningen, a conference that attracted attendees from around the world. It was there that she met the man who would later become her husband: Australian scientist Robert Deveraux, or ‘Bob’ Croll.

Bob, supported by his 21-year-old daughter Helen, enticed Grietje to Australia, where she faced yet another challenge: despite her credentials, she struggled to find work. “She would likely have been interviewed by blokes who may have found her more qualified than themselves, and they may have been intimidated by that,” her niece suspects.

Instead of stagnating, Grietje reinvented herself - again. She studied town planning, which led to work as a research assistant in the field. “She was adventurous,” says her niece. “She saw opportunities, and took them.”

Though she was later invited to take up a teaching position in the US, Grietje followed Bob when he was posted to London to represent CSIRO at the Australian High Commission. Due to diplomatic restrictions, she wasn’t allowed to work there. So she pivoted again, studying traffic management and pursuing her growing passion for art. Printmaking, drawing, painting and photography - all became part of her creative repertoire. She described herself as a “scientist who dabbles in art” for the rest of her life. 

Upon returning to Australia, Grietje again found herself unable to get a job. Instead, she learned about share management and took charge of the couple’s finances, a role that enabled their growing life of philanthropy. At the same time, she designed and supervised extensions to their home, Vista, in the Dandenong Ranges. They began annual outback trips in their campervan and travelled extensively abroad - to Europe, America, Egypt, Asia and Africa - often visiting friends. “Grietje made a lot of friends, and she stayed in touch - no matter where she was.”

Throughout her life, Grietje gave generously — and quietly. “Nobody knew about most of it until after she passed,” says her niece. Besides supporting family and regularly donating to medical research, conservation and other charities, she funded scholarships for students in Sierra Leone and Australia, bought an iPad for a disabled Aboriginal girl she met during her travels so she could do her schoolwork, kickstarted the building of a community art centre with a $10,000 donation, and funded a documentary about an Aboriginal community project. “She never talked about it,” her niece says. “She just did it.” 

Her decision to leave part of her estate to the Anne van den Ban Fund was, in many ways, a final echo of the values instilled in her childhood. “Scholarships made her own education possible,” says her niece. “She went from a girl from a poor family in a little village to the woman she became. And now she would like others to have that same opportunity.”

In her nineties, Grietje remained sharp, informed, and involved. She continued to actively manage her own share portfolio, studying global politics to guide her investments while grappling with the environmental impact of a growing economy. Grietje sent daily ‘round-robin’ emails to friends and family. These started as a support system to ensure she was safe living on her own — but quickly became an intellectual column filled with commentary on everything from Australian tax policy (she couldn’t fathom why politicians didn’t want to tax the wealthy) to the history of the conflict in Israel. 

Grietje continued to drive her small red car and, above all, she remained curious. “One of her favorite phrases was, ‘I learned something,’” her niece remembers. “Even when things went wrong, she learned from it. That’s how she lived.” 

When she learned her time was short, Grietje’s response was characteristic. “What a pity I won’t get to see who the next U.S. president will be,” she quipped.

Grietje Croll-van Randen never sought the spotlight. But through the lives she touched, and the opportunities she created - often anonymously - her impact is lasting. Her story is a reminder that legacy isn’t about ego, it’s about enabling. 

As her niece puts it: “It was about paying it forward. About giving people a chance to run with something - not expecting anything, just giving them the opportunity to further themselves.” In leaving part of her estate to University Fund Wageningen’s Anne van den Ban Fund, she did just that. Learning of Grietje’s life so well lived, we might all ask ourselves: can we open up opportunities for others?