John Gerard Eman was born on November 12, 1898 and was affectionately called ‘Dudu’ from an early age. He grew up in a time when Aruba did not yet have much economic activity. John started working in the pharmacy but soon he entered the business world. He started his own business, the J.G. Eman Company (later called Eman Trading), and acted as an agent for various products. As luck would have it, Lago came to Aruba at that time (the twenties). The opening of the refinery created jobs and money started to circulate. The entire economy flourished.
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A large part of the estate around the Sint Nicolaas Bay on which Lago built its oil refinery and the various associated residential areas had been purchased by Lago from Benoit Solognier Eman, John Eman’s father, for the small sum of twenty-five thousand florins. John had acted as an intermediary in the deal, at the request of his father.
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The good relationship with the Lago representatives continued, and Eman benefited from it. Eman also acted as cashier for the refinery. Lago received money from Curacao, for making payments in Aruba. When more and more Lago employees asked him to keep their money for them, he decided to officially establish a bank.
Thus, the John Gerard Eman Bank opened its doors in 1925, first on Wilhelminastraat, later on Nassaustraat. It was the first bank on Aruba. Until then, people on the island had kept their money in their own hands. Moreover, there were many who did not have much money anyway, and mainly made payments with products or services in return. Thanks to Lago, they also had to walk around with a wallet. At their request, Eman took that money into custody, and charged them one cent commission for it.
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Initially, Eman simply stored his clients’ money in various small bags in a simple box with a lock. Only later did he buy a second-hand safe from the Maduro & Curiel’s Bank (MCB) in Curaçao. The contacts with MCB resulted in a merger between the J.G. Eman Bank and the Aruban branch of MCB in 1936. For Eman, this step was necessary because his own bank turned out to be too small to independently meet the growing demand for loans. The merger did mean the end of the name JG Eman Bank. From then on, the bank was called Aruba Bank NV. The collaboration with MCB lasted until 1962. After that, the Eman family ran the company alone for a long time. A definitive turning point came in 1993, when the Orco Bank from Curaçao acquired a majority of the shares, which meant that the family lost its say. The founder of the bank had long since died by then.
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John G. Eman married Frederika van der Biest-Eman in 1927, a descendant of the prominent Van der Biest family from which many Aruban commanders originated. Together they had three daughters and four sons. In May 1944, at the age of 46, John G. Eman died.
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If it had been up to the local residents, the Nassaustraat would have been renamed the John G. Emanstraat in the 1940s. However, the official request was rejected by the then governor Piet Kasteel, who found it inappropriate to remove the name ‘Nassau’. That is why the Noordstraat, located a little further away, was named after Eman.
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This story is to be credited to ‘Na Caminda’, by the Aruba Heritage Foundation.
