Shortly after the marriage, van Winter handed over his paint trade to his only son Pieter, and the couple moved to Leiden, maintaining their friendships in Amsterdam via intense correspondence.

[1] Van Merken represented the 18th-century Enlightenment ideal of an educated, civilized citizen, and for a long time was a model for budding poets.

[3][4] When a group of poets joined around 1760 to form a society, "Laus Deo, Salus Populo" ('Honor to God, blessings for the people'), in order to update the archaic rhymed translation of the Psalms by Petrus Datheen, van Merken's future husband was one of them.

[14] Because van Merken rarely commented on contemporary events outside of her occasional poems, her ode in French to George Washington, which she sent to him personally in October 1783, is all the more remarkable.

The ode, which hails Washington as the defender of his people's freedom (apparently Van Merken despised the British), contained twenty four-line stanzas.

Van Merken waited in vain for an answer, and half a year later, in April 1784, she sent it again, this time accompanied by a letter in French written by her husband.

[11][5] Her final work, De ware geluksbedeeling, published in 1792 along with some letters in rhyme and a few occasional poems, is similar to Het nut der tegenspoeden, a contemplation on life, on the inevitability of sorrow, and the comfort offered by religion.