8. ADDITIONAL LATERAL INFORMATION
George
George worked for electricity public utility, established in 1923 as the Electricity Supply Commission (ESCOM). Principally he was involved with erecting and maintaining the transmission towers near Fisantekraal. Thereafter, he ran his own business in Durbanville which, upon retiring, he sold and which was still, in 2003, trading under the name “Dent‘s Electrical Services”.
He was for virtually all of his life an avid “radio-ham”. After his divorce from Rita, in 1946 he married Erna Viljoen, Willie Werth’s sister, who had two daughters from a prior marriage called Justine (27 Jun 1934) and Estelle (3 Jan 1940) – both were to marry farmers viz. (respectively) Malcolm MacGregor and Neil Retief.
George and Erna’s daughter, Noreen, regrettably contracted a virus, did not develop mentally and was confined eventually to a home near Durban and thereafter in Bellville. After retiring, they moved to a cottage on Neil and Estelle’s farm in the Hex River Valley until Erna passed away.
George later married Mary Carroll who he had known from ESCOM and they lived in Mowbray until his death. Justine and Malcolm retired to Somerset West. Estelle runs her own estate agency business in Worcester.
(Ed: In late 2003 I made contact with both Justine and Estelle, who were living in Somerset West and Worcester respectively. Justine has two sons and a daughter and Estelle four daughters. Also after settling in Helderberg Village, playing bowls one afternoon, I was drawn against Henry Herrmann who, after discussion, turned out to be Erna’s cousin! Malcolm passed away on 10 August 2004 and I was lucky enough to see Justine and Estelle a few days later.)
BETTY
Betty left Cape Town for Southern Rhodesia in 1939 - she had worked off and on at Dent & Co. Proceeding to Bulawayo, she worked for a time at the Grand Hotel and was to marry Allan Campbell who was stationed in that country with the RAF. He was born in Hong Kong, of Hugh Frank Campbell and Ellen Rachel (nee Brown). Betty and Allan lived for a while in Rothesay Road, Avondale, Salisbury (now Harare).
They had three children, Charles, Everlie Keesha and Matilda-Jane (Tilly). After the war, ±1947 (before Dora passed away), Allan was demobilised back to the UK. The family left by rail for Cape Town, where they stayed for a brief period in a boarding house near the Hotel Bordeaux, before embarking on the “Edinburgh Castle” to Southampton.
Charles returned to South Africa in 1968, Tilly in 1970 and finally Betty, some considerable time after Allan died, in about 1973, where she lived in Johannesburg with Tilly and Brian.
Charles worked in the hotel trade for a while. He was married to Therese, but then divorced and ran his own business in Muizenberg before returning to Johannesburg and thereafter to the UK. They had a son, Rufus, born 30 May 1979.
(Ed: Maureen and I and the children visited Charles at a hotel in Butterworth - in what was then the Transkei - in transit to the Natal South Coast in the late 1970s.)
Everlie married David Turpin, and they presently reside near Tunbridge Wells, Kent [New Barn Farm, Paddock Wood]. They have four children: Rupert [28.02.1966], Rachel [08.11.1969], Hannah [28.09.1973] and Joseph [22.08.1979])
(Ed: It was to be over 53 years before cousin Everlie and I were to meet again when she and husband David visited Harare.)
Tilly married Brian Wood who, after leaving the merchant navy, worked for Standard Bank on the IT side. They lived in Johannesburg and had three children: Robert [15.09.1979], Abigail “Fleur” [21.09.1981] and Fraser [18.09.1985].
(Ed: Maureen and I have stayed in contact with Tilly - she visited us in Salisbury, and we stayed with them in Johannesburg en route to Cape Town for holidays.)
GORDON
Prior to joining up to go to war, Gordon was building houses on “spec” in Cape Town. He married a blind girl, served in the War and on demobilisation discovered that his wife had frittered away all his accumulated army pay. They divorced.
After the death of his parents, Gordon returned to Cape Town, was employed at the Johannesburg Building Society and married a very young Anne Hambleton. Her father was an absolute character. He was a huge man with a booming baritone voice who lived something of an exotic life in the Pacific islands of Tonga.
Two children, Patricia and Michael, were born before the marriage ended in divorce. Michael, very sadly took his own life some twenty years later on Chapmans Peak. Gordon then married Julie and they lived in Rondebosch - ultimately near Randall’s Hotel before she died.
Gordon spent his last days living with Julie’s daughter, René and her husband in St James. In his lifetime he had been a member of the M.O.T.H.S. and was a keen bowler – he was an expert carpenter, had a very keen sense of humour and an individualistic laugh.
(Ed: Maureen and I were lucky enough to meet René and her husband in 2003 whilst they were on a visit to Cape Town from the Caribbean where they presently reside. Patricia lives in Port Elizabeth with her husband Louis Du Toit and son Andrė – I telephoned her after Dad’s 90th birthday and Maureen and I eventually met up with them for lunch in Port Elizabeth in March 2020.)
CECIL
His life stories appear in greater detail later in this account. In short, he married Mamie and they had three children: William John (Bill), Robert Gordon (Bob) and Glynn Patricia.
The family lived in Camps Bay. Cecil’s main employment was with Stuttaford Van Lines. Upon retiring he and Mamie moved to Hout Bay and then to Somerset West. After Mamie passed away in 1992, Cecil lived at the St James and Anchusa retirement complexes.
Bill went to Salisbury (now Harare) in 1959; Bob lived variously around South Africa and on a whaling boat, but mainly in Cape Town as did Glynn. Bill returned to live in Somerset West in 2003.
Cecil outlived all his siblings by a wide margin as did Mamie.
KEESHA
Keesha and husband, Willie, met while both working for Barclays Bank. They lived in Ave de Longueville, Fresnaye before later moving to Cypress Avenue, Newlands and then ±1970 to Constantia. They had two children, Lucille and Willem.
Lucille, married Fritz Pohlit and they had a daughter, Brigitta (26-03-1966). She then married David Pettifar and they had a son, Justin (25-05-1977). She then married Arthur William James “Tex” White and they moved to Northern Ireland in 1996.
Willem married Lynn Jennifer Roberts (02-06-1947) and they had two children: Amanda Jane (13-10-1970) and Christopher Norris (21-10-1972).
The family left South Africa in 1987 and settled in Vancouver, Canada. From there Willem and Lynn retired to Arizona.