Mail at The Guest House in Durnacol

Time to open letters between my parents.

There are a set of letters between Vanderbijlpark and P.O. Durnacol, it seems that Dad, who worked for Iscor in Vanderbijlpark, would spend blocks of time at a coal mine in Natal in the late sixties and early seventies. 

Mom is at home, juggling three young children, her ailing parents and in her letter of Friday the 9 August 1968 she pours out her distress and exhaustion.

I was taken aback when I realised that between the newsy, gentle May '68 letters that Nan sent from Messina to Mom, to this letter that Mom has written to Dad, Nan has had her leg amputated. She must have been underplaying the gravity of her neuritis. 
I wonder how soon afterwards she became a double amputee?

Mom writes about going to her Mom to see how she was doing:
"She was bright and cheerful. Dad then took her for a walk round the garden in the wheelchair and she wanted to try and exercise and walk with the crutches in the courtyard. She got out of the chair and held onto the rails at the flower boxes and pulled herself up and down a couple of times. She turned around and asked Dad for her crutches as she wanted to take a few steps. Chip she stood there counting and took one step and the next thing she fell. I stood paralysed for a split second, which seemed an eternity and when Dad and I tried to lift her we realised she was unconscious. She had fallen like a ton of bricks on her face."


Mom is traumatised throughout the letter, 'I was shaking from head to toe...and Dad has taken this very badly and I also had to treat him for shock this morning."
"I had a very bad night  - had a nightmare about Dad having an attack and Mom being unable to walk, it was all left to me."

As a family we too are feeling the of responsibility for a frail parent and it does not sit lightly on our shoulders either. 

Mom's 'friday 13th' starts with 18 month old Inel who has a dislocated collarbone. 


So between visiting her parents, witnessing her mother fall, she is also running back and forth to the clinic for multiple sets of X-rays, as she is worried whether Inel has a broken bone.

Her life long friend Daphne pops past to bring Mom some old clothes for Inel who is in too much pain to wear her baby clothes.

Its bitterly cold too.

The day continues downhill, Mom has taken liver out of the fridge to defrost and the dog sneaks it into the bedroom for a midnight snack!
"I woke with the sound of rustling plastic and it took me a while to register (my heart was beating 60 to the dozen) what was going on."

Friday the 13th indeed.




One small ray of sunshine: 
"The kids have been wonderful so far and send their love. Clive is really trying to do all the jobs you gave him."


Note:
Durnacol: Durban Navigation Collieries started as a coal mine providing coal for steam ships in the port of Durban but then later mined high quality coking coal for the South Iron and Steel Corp., Iscor. The mine was located in Natal, near Dannhauser, and was closed in the late 1990's.

A family feud

Selwyn, Estelle and Gus van der Veen

My mother had two brothers, Gus and Selwyn, one older and one younger than herself.

















The time I spent with the van der Veen uncles, aunts and cousins came to an abrupt halt at some point in my childhood.

The feud between the family lasted until just before my mother's passing, she briefly spoke to both her brothers, nothing really healed or changed and to this date we have no contact or knowledge of this part of our family.

I noticed that the letter itemising her bequests is addressed from 24 Thackeray Street, Vanderbijlpark, which was Gus's home.

She must have lived with Gus and Joyce during her last years.

Going through Dad's letters, I found six pages, undated, unsigned but penned by Dad and he was documenting what seems like the trigger for the family feud.
And not surprisingly it is the telling of family manipulations and money.
It is unclear whether this was the starting point or the tipping point of the breakdown of the extended family.

Dad's writing is always a challenge but the gist is that we had outgrown 3 Gillespie Street (and they had got tired of the neighbours!). The strategy was to buy land, which happened in Wenning Street, Vanderbijlpark, build a home and also accommodate Mom's parents in a self-contained space.

And as Dad finishes on his first page:
"This was then discussed family wise and agreed. The old man would lend us +- R5000 to settle the balance owing on 3 Gillespie Street and pay in +- R3000 for his portion of the house, this was to enable us to immediately negotiate for a new loan to start building, had this happened the house would have been completed by +- mid February 1970. We would have paid back the R5000 as soon as 3 Gillespie was sold. The R3000 wouldn't be repaid as it was to be for the comfort of the old folks and would not be a necessity in our home when they were no longer there."

Gus intervenes, suggests that the folks would be overcapitalising and the plan is shelved. Then in an about turn, he (Gus) ...
"decided he would build on for them, for their (the old folks) account. Gus suggested at the time that the folks should give each of the kids i.e. Gus, Selwyn and Estelle R3000 to even things out, where there was building to be done it could come out of the R3000 (This suggestion was made when we were going to build on at our house - apparently Gus was taking exception to the fact that we would  eventually reap the so called benefit of the extra section built on)"

Mom and Dad withdraw completely at this point, ..
"Estelle also made it clear to Gus that she would have nothing to do with the idea Gus had i.e. R3000 each, as this money might later be needed by the old folks should they require intensive care..'

So, an extension happened at Gus's place, the 'old folks' were not happy it seems and had had expectations of a place with us too as can be seen above.

Nan in her later years.

I recognise a sentiment that I still hear from my father as he spends this last phase of his life in frail care, ...
"and above all realise that they are living with people who have their own lives to lead and are no longer youngsters but have children of their own who naturally must take much of their time, affection and energy which is their just right, then circumstances could be more pleasant."

To Dad: thank you for lessons from this difficult phase of your life that you documented and for being so gracious to me, Inel and Doreen and for not making us feel any guilt about the choices we make and ultimately have to make.

To my darling sisters: we are handling the tough inflection points in our life with Dad as he ages and becomes so frail, with grace and dignity. Thank you for the wisdom to do so and at some level I remember the times Dad is writing about in his notes and we have certainly broken the family constellation set in motion in the 70's.

A legacy of diabetes and the skin of a leguaan

Goodness me, three of my four grandparents had diabetes.

 Pa and Nan van der Veen from my photo gallery in the hall.

The disease wreaked havoc for each of them.

I have a note written by my father that Nan and Pa would not be able to return to their house in Faraday Boulevard after the operation, mid 1969, so this would be when Nan has the final amputation due to the diabetes, she was then a double amputee.

The first operation was mid 1968.

The Messina 31 May 1968 letter, only a few months before her operation.

She mentions her legs and one can infer that she is already feeling the impact of the neuritis, '..so excuse mistakes as it (the typewriter) wobbles every now and then and I just want to be very careful that it does not fall over onto my two legs'




Instead of revisiting their individual suffering I want to share another delightful story from Nan's letter sent to Mom, particularly as there are no letters after the amputations except for her bequest list.

 .....he had used a leguaan skin for his neuritis, so now everyone in Messina is looking for a leguaan for Mrs. van der Veen, including the mine natives. I believe one crossed the main road to the Standard Bank the other day and the kids scattered far and wide. It was going to a good place neh"

A vintage postcard from Amanzimtoti

Nan writing to my brother Clive from Toti in 1963 and wishing he was with her to make castles in the sand.

In a letter dated January 1964 she says to tell Clive he must catch a fish for Nanna.

He would have been 3 years old.

A sense of place along Faraday Boulevard, Vanderbijlpark

Nan and Pa van der Veen lived no more than 3 kilometres from our first home in Vanderbijlpark which was in Gillespie Street. So Nan's letters, which span a period from July 1959 to a note she left my mother in September 1971 giving her a few instructions on what to do with her special things on her death, are sent from her trips around South Africa mostly visiting family; Messina, Port St Johns, Amanzimtoti, Johannesburg.

This 2010 google maps photo of 39 Faraday Blvd looks so similar to what their home looked like in the sixties! 

I can do a mental walk through the house, I have a sense of the place, the darker unused front rooms, the light airiness out back, eating apricots directly from the tree with Clive, Nan's bedroom smelling faintly of her favourite 4711 Eau de Cologne, the colours of her crochet blanket, walking hand in hand to movies with Nan, if I am not mistaken to 'Sound of Music', Pa's wet kisses, and in the later years Nan in her wheelchair, after the  amputation of her legs caused by her diabetes.

There are two items in my home in Norwood that come from this time and this house along busy Faraday Boulevard in Vanderbijlpark, my kist left to me by Nan and a wrought iron bookcase made for me by Pa.

I never got to say thank you to Nan for the kist and I do so now, it is a much loved possession, the centre piece in the hall.

A post for little "Don't touch it"

All this time I thought my Mom unique in her passion for crafts. Meanwhile her mother was too, she is making a string bag which needs to be lined, string lampshades and she has Pa knitting on the single bed knitting machine.

In the Messina letter, she has started a  blanket for her 'little "Don't touch it", as it is time she got one too'

My sisters had no or very little years with their grandparents, so it is precious to see Inel mentioned in this letter. 

In 1968, Inel was a year old and Nan is delighted to share with Mom how clever she and Sis have been in adapting a pattern from a picture of a blanket being held by the Presidents' wife ( likely Lettie Fouche, as Jim Fouche was South African President in 1968). 

I am assuming Sis or Sissie, who engraved my copper baobab, was Pa's sister. She was a creative force in those years and Nan was just a little in awe of her.

All about a blanket for Inel.

I am noticing another shared quality between mother and daughter - they were frugal, loved scraps and hoarded all sorts of bits and pieces. 

Four generations of women

Nan is sitting on the back veranda in a morris chair and the date is 31 May 1968. The chair has been adapted to hold her typewriter. She is visiting family in Messina, 'it is so nice and warm out here and I can help dad on with his knitting when he gets stuck.'

I started reading the Messina letters this morning to see if they can shed light on the copper etching I have in my autograph book. 

Instead I am discovering my Nan and I like who I am meeting in these letters.

I have always loved words and I especially loved Nan calling us her scallywags, the word has a slight edge to it, rascals, derived from pirate speak but it was her special term of endearment for her grandchildren.

Her scallywags have become generations of women who have her qualities.

Her letters are full of love and concern for her family; they show her industriousness, the joy of creating, of projects, of arts and crafts; her sense of fun and humour; the pleasure of colour and design; the beauty of flowers and a garden; an appreciation of small kindnesses; a curiosity; a perseverance; she is house proud and she has the ability to enjoy the detail in her life.

P.S. Am sitting chewing dried peaches which we have not seen for years and we found at Musiekers.'

Nan's generations of women.

I can relate to her story to Mom about Pa and the black dye! No doubt my sisters can too.
'Some people have silly husbands.'

Inel. Little "Don't touch" is you...

A little turquoise Autograph Book

My Autogragh Book which I have kept since the late sixties. How I loved collecting the messages and autographs.

Today we bought Brasso and Fred cleaned up a small piece of copper I have in my little turquoise Autograph Book. It's a finely etched drawing of a baobab, dated 23-7-67, my eleventh birthday, signed Sissie.

Messina.
A holiday with extended family on my maternal grandfather's side. I remember this particular trip and only because of this little book.
Everything is vague though, who Sissie is, who wrote the message in my book signed Roos, Messina, but the pleasure from putting the copper drawing in the autograph book lingers.

I have a wedding photo of my maternal grandparents hanging in the house and I feel as though I am seeing them for the first time, so interesting what the blogging is creating for me.
Pa is fresh faced with a wide open forehead, the gentle smile on his face, in fact he is good-looking, Nan's headgear and veil drowns her somewhat and she looks a little tense.
I do not know the rest of the folks in the photo, we did have an Aunty Edoo who lived down the road from my grandparents and gave me huge dolls as a child, wonder if that is her to the left of Pa?










Nan was a typist.
She prepared the typed messages in my autograph book from her and Pa, I love the curling 'N' of her Nan and her signature on the autograph wall, that's Mom's just below hers, D E Wedderburn.
Then the only writing I have found of my Pa so far, his signature, top right on the photo above, Pa v d Veen. My father mentioned that Pa was a Superintendent of Factories at Iscor.

My Pa walking Mom into the church, my cousin Ian as the beautiful pageboy.

Now to dip into Nan's letter cards sent from Messina....

A passion for rugby, Percy Wedderburn

Percy Wedderburn, top row, second from the right.
Orange Free State Rugby team

Percy Wedderburn, centre back row.

Percy Wedderburn, my paternal grandfather, loved the game of rugby and played for the Orange Free State. Lack of funding kept him from playing for South Africa on an overseas tour.

Letter done, folded and then Grandpa Percy must have been annoyed by a game he was listening to and added this final thought.

His letters written in his seventies show his ongoing involvement in the game and he certainly continued to have an opinion too! 

The Wallabies in the June '63 letter are a 'useful side they seem to have had the better of E Transvaal in all departments.'

The Wallabies again, in the August '63 letter, have shaken up the Boks and I can feel his frustration as he writes of their short-comings to my Dad.

I love the typical rugby supporter archetype, he is clear who should be dropped from the team, nothing has changed all these decades later, its what I hear from my Dad and from Fred.

Aunty Dolly self published her biography called "The Drive to Dance" in 1997 and I have copied this piece on Percy Wedderburn from her book:

Listening to a game of cricket in the 'Cage'

The farmhouse, Kalkwal, Orange Free State.

A clear memory I have of our family holidays at Kalkwal in the Free State, is of my Grandpa Percy sitting in an upright chair, next to a table in the 'cage', listening to a cricket test on the radio.

The cage seemed to echo for hours with the voice of Charles Fortune (1906-1994), the voice of cricket on the radio, he would flow on for hours, sometimes about the cricket game but mostly about the sky, the birds and all sorts of minor details surrounding the game.

The cage was a half brick structure at the end of the veranda (or stoep as it was called) enclosed with mosquito netting.  It can be seen on the lefthand side on the old photo above. Nothing remains of the farmhouse so these old photos are gems.

Tea was served in the cage to keeps the flies off the teatime treats. The cage was also the place where my cousins, their friends and I played rounds of cards for hours on end.

In this letter dated Mar 21st '63, Grandpa Percy writing to Dad mentions the Cavaliers, an ad hoc cricket team made up of famous cricketers, both retires and up and coming, in order to encourage local cricket.
'...the news has just come through that they have just been heated by Natal, 8 wickets.'

Cage at Kalkwal, and the huge old pepper tree that I loved. Fragrant in the heat of summer.

A small matter of money

"A word is dead when it is said, some say. I say it just begins to live that day."

 Emily Dickinson

So, in tackling my letter project, I am going to take the lead from the fabulous Dickinson poem where she says that when a word is said, that is just the beginning of the whole story. I will not censor or edit, but sit with the comfort or discomfort of the content of the letters in my possession.

So, my father, Choeps to his Mom, has asked for money and his father has agreed to lend him R800. They can do this as they are busy sending mealies in and are expecting some 'geld in soon'.

I was bemused to read, further into the letter:

'By the way please don't mention to Bob that we are financing you otherwise he might feel like asking for something too. He is not too good a payer so am not interested in lending to them besides which he gets such a damned good screw. I fail to see what he does with it.  They were moaning much better when they were here last.'

'life in the letters' - Nanny Ina

An old photo that Mom has in her Wedderburn History Album

The calm voice of Nanny Ina imbues her letters between 1959 and 1962 with the sense of everyday life. Her garden, the weather, vehicle problems, progress of planting and harvesting on the farm.
 'The garden is coming along nicely I have planted out three boxes of plants and next week must do the dahlias, they were all watered yesterday. The wisteria climbing up the almond tree is full  of blossom and will be very pretty each year now.'

She updates my folks on family news -
Uncle Ralph's foot getting better in the September '59 letter and Ian having his birthday party;
Aunty Dolly taking her for a perm in the October '61 letter and a movie and how excited she is to have an outing (letter below);
Uncle Bobby's promotion to Transport Supervision and second in charge in South Africa in the November '61 ' the chap resigned and Bob got his job'; and in a later letter that they will be moving to Parkhurst, Johannesburg;
Shirley buying Dinkie Toys;
Aunty Dolly 'got the wool OK and is just dying to get stuck  in to the knitting, just can't wait for the weekend to come now';

And each letter is newsy about extended family, friends, births, weddings, the happy and the suffering that was happening around her during those years.

I feel her suffering in the letters.
Her concern for "Dad" or Pa as she sometimes called him, is evident in each letter. His health is failing, diabetes, insulin, weight loss.

She describes the pain in her legs and feet, the giddiness and shares a diagnosis with the folks that it is peripheral neuritis caused by the diabetes.
The last letter, 7 August 1962, she writes:
'I am still having such giddiness and they don't seem to get anything to clear it up. I'm sick of feeling under par, as for pills I've really had them.'

I will end not on her passing but that she was the beauty of our family and we continue to hold her in awe.

'I bought a pretty moss green hat and gloves to wear with my purple blue-green frock and the hat will also go well with the other dress, roses on the green, white background.'

In loving memory of our Grandmother, Nanny Ina.
Ina Moody Wedderburn.

Quick scan of the wallet letters and they start with congratulations and end in sadness.

A quick scan of the letters. 

They span a period from September 1959 to June 1966.

The oldest is dated 22 - 9 - 59 sent by Nanny Ina to my parents, from the family home in Bloemfontein, 12 Marquard Crescent.

And the final letter from Grandpa Percy dated 14 June 1966.

Tears are just behind my eyes and blurring the screen, I will came back to the detail in another blog. These are letters written in the last years of their lives.

 Nanny Ina (1898 - 1962) and Grandpa Percy ((1889 - 1966). 

I can see from the dates that Pa takes over letter writing from 1963 after Nanny Ina's death and drops the folks a couple of pages, in his bold, open handwriting. 

This set of letters starts with a congratulations.

My mother would have written of her pregnancy and Nanny Ina is 'pleased to hear your news - get busy now my dear there will be plenty to do I am sure'.

His letter of the 26 September '63 he shares 'with Ralph and I alone, there is not much fun, if one was fully occupied it would help to overcome the loneliness, a home without a Mrs is terrible.'

The final letter is a thank you letter for 'pyjamas, and good wishes for my birthday' that Grandpa Percy received from the folks.

It is tough for me to finish this post.

Deep breath.

My Grandfather shot himself soon after this letter. It was kept from me for many decades and it sits with me like a stone at the bottom of my heart.
It is a horror to me as he seems to have set a pattern for gun suicides in my family.

The Brown Wallet of Letters

I have two sisters, Inel and  Doreen. They have left me this wonderful project to document our family history through this letter project.

It's a cooler, grey spring morning here in Johannesburg and I am hoping for our first summer rains. I have put Mom's Bowersburn Princess box aside and have taken out a beautifully worn brown wallet to explore.

The lefthand side of the wallet has letters and in the right side are two carefully folded handkerchiefs. In the front pocket is a 1960 black and white photo of Nanny Ina (my paternal grandmother) holding my 4 month old brother Clive and myself age 5.

Along with a brief note from my father, John Ennis Wedderburn, dated January 1993.

An invitation to read what is in his wallet; to bring back the past.

These are letters from his mother and father. Ina and Percy Wedderburn of Bloemfontein.

A quote from my current book club read so resonates with me.... 'she saw the past everywhere she looked, as if it were a layer of reality just beneath the present.' 
The Garden of Burning Sand, Corban Addison.

I am loving my readiness to evoke the past, it feels just the right timing.

Dear Little Brown Mouse

This tiny envelope, 5cm  by 7cm, is tucked right at the bottom of the box of letters and addressed to Miss N Argyle. It contains an invitation card to Little Brown Mouse to a party to be held on Wednesday the 5 January 1921. It implores Nellie to come 'Even by aeroplane because it is 'Smuttys' Birthday'. He makes the party a day affair and underlines 'long time'.

The sender is in Ngqeleni, inland of Port St Johns' in the Eastern Cape.

Nellie was to be my maternal grandmother but the sender is unknown to me and I cannot connect any dots here, neither the place nor who is writing.

It does not alter the delight in reading the letter card.
'The envelopes remind me of you my dear they are so big!' 
My Nan was tiny.

He writes of a tinned plum pudding, the scorching heat, feeling well and wearing riding togs as his box from Pretoria has only just turned up.

He writes of finding the stationery and his longing for his little Brown Mouse and that if he could be with her he would be happy.

My assumption is that the writer is not my maternal grandfather, he was Afrikaans and the writer mentions Mater and Dad which does not ring true for an afrikaans speaking young man.

I wonder who he was.

A letter sent to the Standerton Hotel, Standerton, Transvaal.

The year would have been 1954. The postmark and date are indistinct on the envelop but this letter was sent to my newly married parents on their way down to Margate for their honeymoon.

The Wedding invite, Saturday the 13 March 1954

This gorgeous photo of Mom in her gossamer blue wedding dress with fabulous details and Dad looking so handsome, hangs in our bedroom here at the Loft in Amanzimtoti.

It came to me from Ryan Wedderburn who found it in his boxed things from the Kalkwal Farm in the Free State. It belonged to my paternal grandparents, Percy and Ina Wedderburn.

Written by a friend in Vanderbijlpark (unknown but assuming a girlfriend from the handwriting) to the Dear little Honeymooners, this letter would have been waiting for Dad and Mom when they arrived for their overnight stay at the Standerton Hotel, in Standerton.

The letter is lighthearted, familiar 'you two little lambie pies' and makes promises of more sabotage and batches of dirt.

Seems my folks were known for their pranks with their honeymooning friends.
The letter must have made them smile.